Language exposure and English digital reading achievement in East Asia: Examining the role of students’ socioeconomic status

Abstract

In recent years, the importance of language exposure and socioeconomic status (SES) in shaping learners’ language learning outcomes has gained significant attention in language educational studies. However, studies that directly investigated the correlation between language exposure from parents and peers, SES, and English digital reading achievement remained limited. This present study examined how language exposure from parents and peers interacted with SES in predicting English digital reading achievement among the three East Asian economies using the PISA 2018 data with 7,703 student participants from Macao, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Results from the Pearson correlation and hierarchical linear regression revealed: (1) that there is a negative relationship between language exposure from parents and English digital reading achievement; (2) that language exposure from best friends and siblings showed a positive influence on English digital reading achievement; and (3) that the effects of language exposure from schoolmates differed among the three economies. Although SES exerted a significant and positive impact on English digital reading achievement among the three East Asian economies, SES did not moderate the relationship between language exposure and English digital reading achievement. Implications and limitations are discussed.