Student performance in mathematics in six Latin American countries: a multilevel PISA 2018 data analysis

Abstract

The 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test indicates that Latin American countries perform below most OECD countries. This study examines student and school-level variables’ effects on students’ academic performance, and especially the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) use. Many authors have researched the ICT factors that affect academic achievement in general and mostly in developed countries. However, there is little research on the specific ICT variables that affect the academic performance of Latin American students altogether. Using PISA 2018 data, corresponding to evaluations of students of 15-year-old across six Latin American countries, a multilevel statistical model analyzes the effects of student achievement on mathematics proficiency. The results show that socioeconomic status and gender are the most important explanatory variables. Also, ICT factors significantly influence Latin American student’s performance. However, just over half of the studied factors have a negative effect. On the other hand, the positive influence of ICT factors is minimal and hardly statistically significant compared to gender and socioeconomic status variables. The ICT use outside of school for leisure purposes shows a negative and a differentiated impact compared with other works that analyze the same variable in developed countries. These results are significant from a public policy perspective, as they suggest where interventions can be made to improve academic performance in such countries.