Student-perceived teacher-related classroom ecology and reading achievement in Türkiye: A multilevel analysis of PISA 2018 data

This study examined the associations between student-perceived teacher-related classroom ecology variables and reading achievement among 15-year-old students in Türkiye using PISA 2018 data. Grounded in a school ecology perspective, it focused on six student-perceived variables: adaptive instruction, teacher-directed instruction, teacher feedback, teacher support, teacher enthusiasm, and teacher stimulation of reading engagement. The analytic sample included 6,890 students nested within schools. Missing responses to teacher-related questionnaire items were handled through multiple imputation, and reading achievement was modeled using all ten plausible values. Two-level random-intercept hierarchical linear models were estimated with students at Level 1 and schools at Level 2. Adaptive instruction, teacher support, and teacher stimulation of reading engagement were positively associated with reading achievement. In contrast, teacher-directed instruction and teacher feedback were negatively associated with reading achievement, whereas teacher enthusiasm was not statistically significant. By linking PISA 2018 reading achievement data with student-perceived teacher-related classroom ecology variables, this study contributes to understanding how perceived instructional environments are associated with reading performance in Türkiye. The findings suggest that teacher-related classroom ecology is not uniformly associated with reading performance; rather, different teaching dimensions relate to reading achievement in distinct ways.