Development of Reading Culture Components in Secondary Schools under the Office of the Basic Education Commission

Abstract

The purposes of this research article were 1) to develop components and indicators of reading culture in secondary schools under the Office of the Basic Education Commission; and 2) to examine the consistency of the model for measuring reading culture in secondary schools with empirical data. The sample consisted of 100 school administrators, 100 teachers, and 150 students, totaling 350 people in Inspection Region 18, obtained through multi-stage random sampling. The research instrument was a 5-level Likert scale questionnaire consisting of 3 versions developed according to the SOLO Taxonomy framework, with IOC values between 0.80–1.00 and component reliability coefficients (CR) between 0.795–0.897. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for each dimension according to the roles of the informants. The research findings revealed that 1) the reading culture in secondary schools under the Office of the Basic Education Commission comprised 5 components and 17 indicators, namely: policies and vision for promoting reading, the reading environment, attitudes and motivation for reading, reading habits and behaviors, and technology and digital platforms that supported reading; and 2) the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model for measuring reading culture in secondary schools under the Office of the Basic Education Commission was consistent with the empirical data for all components, namely: (1) policies and visions for promoting reading, considered from values = 1.249, df = 1, p – value = 0.2637, RMSEA = 0.050, CFI = 0.999, TLI = 0.996, SRMR = 0.045 (2) Reading environment, considered from values = 1.210, df =1, p – value = 0.2714, RMSEA = 0.046, CFI = 0.998, TLI = 0.994, SRMR = 0.020 (3) Attitudes and motivations for reading Considering the values =5.328, df =2, p – value =0.0697, RMSEA =0.105, CFI = 0.985, TLI =0.955, SRMR =0.023 (4) reading habits and behavior, values =0.316, df =2, p – value =0.8537, RMSEA =0.00, CFI = 1.00, TLI =1.00, SRMR =0.005 and (5) technology and digital platforms that support reading, considering the values =1.098, df =1, p – value = 0.2946, RMSEA =0.026, CFI = 0.999, TLI =0.998, SRMR =0.017. It showed that the developed components and indicators had structural validity. And it can be used as a framework for determining appropriate guidelines for developing a reading culture in secondary schools.