Countries

• Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico were consistently above the regional average on all exams and grade levels evaluated. Argentina, Uruguay, and the Mexican state of Nuevo León were in the same group in the majority of cases.
• Several countries, including Chile Uruguay, Mexico, and the Mexican state of Nuevo León, demonstrated the best results on average, but showed a high variability of scores within the respective country.
• Or, in another scenario, countries such as the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras, demonstrated lower scores on average, but their distribution of scores had a lower variability, meaning that learning achievement is more similarly distributed among all students.

Reading

• Grade 3
  • At the regional level, 61% of students were within performance levels I or II.
  • Learning achievements in this area are related to the comprehension of familiar texts, where the fundamental task is to recognize explicit and evident information.
• Grade 6
  • At the regional level, 70% of students were within performance levels I or II.
  • Learning achievements in this area are related to the comprehension of texts based on both explicit and implicit key elements from which inferences can be made regarding meaning and the communicative purposes of the texts.

Mathematics

• Grade 3
  • Regionally, 71% of students were within performance levels I or II.
  • Learning achievements at these levels are related to the identification of numbers and their ordinal properties.
  • Challenges in this area are related to solving problems that require the application of arithmetic operations, measurements, and geometric figures and the interpretation of information presented in tables and graphs.
• Grade 6
  • At the regional level, 83% of students were within performance levels I or II.
  • Learning achievements at these levels are related to the ability to work with natural numbers and decimals in simple contexts and the reading of explicit data in tables and graphs.
  • Main challenges lie in the solving of complex problems (more than one variable) that involve operations with natural numbers, decimals and fractions and the calculation of perimeters and areas.

Science

• Grade 6
  • At the regional level, 80% of students were at performance levels I or II.
  • In terms of learning achievement, this implies the ability to interpret simple and familiar information in order to establish relationships and draw conclusions.
  • Challenges in this area must focus on the development of scientific thinking, that is, the ability to formulate questions, distinguish variables, select pertinent information, and utilize scientific knowledge to understand one’s surroundings.

Writing

• Grade 3 and 6
  • Linked to textual proficiency, that is, familiarity with the elements of the internal structure of a text.
  • Texts produced by students were coherent (assessment of thematic continuity), with intra-sentence agreement and cohesion (assessment of appropriate grammatical order).
  • The main challenge that arises from the results is the need to strengthen education concerning the discursive dimension, i.e., the capacity to produce texts that are appropriate for the intended communicative purpose and genre.

Associated factors

• Characteristics of students and families
  • Grade repetition was the second most strongly related variable to learning achievement (socioeconomic level is the first).
  • Attending preschool between the ages of 4 and 6 had a positive relationship to learning.
  • Children who received a preschool education demonstrated higher learning achievement in all assessed subject areas and grades.
  • Absence from school had a significant negative association.
  • Educational practices at home can boost academic achievement.
  • Students whose parents believed they will reach higher education exhibited greater academic achievement.
  • When parents supervised the academic development of their children, the results of the students tended to be higher.
  • Recreational use of computers among sixth grade students had a negative relationship to learning.
  • Remunerated child labor also exhibited a negative influence on learning achievement.
  • Indigenous students demonstrated learning achievements that were consistently lower in the different countries of the region.
  • Migrant students obtained lower results on applied tests than non-migrant children.

• Characteristics of teachers, pedagogical practices, and resources in the classroom
  • Teacher attendance and punctuality stood out for its high incidence in school achievement.
  • Availability of educational materials for students is a necessary condition, but alone not sufficient to ensure a proper educational process.
  • Importance of the classroom environment for student academic achievement in the region. Evidence showed that learning processes benefit when the relationships among the parties involved are cordial, collaborative, and respectful.

• Characteristics of the schools
  • The greatest disparities in achievement were recorded among students within the same school. The differences in academic performance within the school represented between 36% and 82% of the total learning disparities in all of the countries, subjects, and grades.
  • In contrast, learning disparities between schools ranged between 18% and 64% in all subject areas and grades.
  • Socioeconomic differences explain a large share of these inter-school disparities in learning, but not the differences in achievement within each educational establishment itself.
  • School resources (infrastructure, facilities, and services) influence the academic results of students.