Extracurricular factors influencing the development of mathematical literacy in Greece and Portugal: a comparative analysis of PISA 2022 findings

Abstract

Mathematical literacy occupies a central place among the skills that individuals in modern societies seek to develop. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the factors that influence its development. This study examined the relationships among staff adequacy, teacher support, socioeconomic background, and mathematics achievement in Greece using data from PISA 2022. Greece and Portugal were compared descriptively in order to contextualize the findings, while all regression analyses were conducted on the Greek sample. Analyses were performed using the IEA IDB Analyzer and incorporated all ten plausible values in mathematics achievement together with the 80 PISA replicate weights, in accordance with OECD methodological recommendations. Results indicated that both individual socioeconomic status and school-average socioeconomic composition were strong predictors of mathematics achievement. In contrast, staff adequacy and teacher support did not exert statistically significant independent effects after controlling for socioeconomic variables. The findings suggest that socioeconomic inequalities play a substantially greater role in shaping mathematical literacy than the resource-related indicators examined in the present study. Implications for educational policy and future research are discussed.