Classroom Management

Teachers who are strong classroom managers are able to minimize disruptions to instruction and focus instructional time on teaching the curricular content. Research has shown a positive association between effective classroom management and student achievement.113,114,115 Measures of classroom management examine whether class lessons are disrupted, whether students respect the teacher, and whether students behave according to teacher instructions.116,117 New for PIRLS 2021, information on classroom management is gathered through a series of items asking students to indicate the frequency with which various threats to effective classroom management such as disruptive noise and student interruption occur during reading lessons.

Classroom Instruction Limited by Student Attributes

Student attributes such as hunger or lack of sleep can limit the impact of classroom instruction and make some classes more challenging to teach than others. Developed for PIRLS 2016, the Classroom Instruction Limited by Student Attributes scale summarizes teachers’ reports about student absences, hungry or tired students, and students who do not have the prerequisite foundation of content knowledge to learn the reading content. Students also are asked to report whether they feel tired and hungry, and how often they are absent from school.