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74 chapter 2: performance at international benchmarks
particular benchmark, and, for multipoint items, the analysis differentiated
between partial-credit and full-credit responses.
There were 126 items in the assessment, about half (64) assessing
“literary experience” and half (62) assessing “acquire and use information”.
Please see Appendix A for the distribution of items by reading purpose and
process category.
About half the PIRLS 2006 items required students to construct their
own answers to the questions (with no help from those administering the
assessment). The constructed-response questions took three different forms:
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For 1-point items, responses were scored as acceptable if they
included all elements required by the questions and were determined
to be accurate based on ideas and information in the text.
For 2-point items, responses that were given full credit
demonstrated complete comprehension by providing appropriate
inferences and interpretations consistent with the text and adequate
textually-based support if required. Responses were given partial
credit (1 point), if they included only some of the information or
demonstrated only a literal understanding when an inference or
interpretation was required.
For 3-point items, responses were given full credit if they
demonstrated extensive comprehension by presenting relatively
complex, abstract ideas or by providing substantial textual support
for inferences and interpretations. Responses were considered
satisfactory and given 2 points if they contained all the required
elements but did not provide complex or abstract ideas, were more
literal than interpretive, or were weak in textually-based support.
Minimal responses (1 point) contained some but not all of the
required elements.
For students to demonstrate achievement in the reading comprehension
process being assessed by multipoint items, usually the response needed
to receive full credit. That is, a more literal response to an item requiring
interpretation, integration, or evaluation of ideas in the text did provide text-
To ensure reliable scoring, PIRLS developed scoring guides for each constructed-response item and conducted training in how
to apply the guides. To monitor reliability within countries, across countries, and between the 2001 and 2006 assessments,
subsamples of students’ systematic responses were scored independently by more than one reader (see Appendix A).