Costa Rica's results show that the slope for rural resource quality is greater than that of urban resource quality in all three subject areas. This shows that resource quality has a greater impact on PISA scores in rural areas in comparison to urban areas. Regression results show that the slope is greatest in reading for rural areas of Costa Rica, and is smallest in science. In accordance with our regression results for Latin America in general, we believe this is due to the fact that reading does not require as many resources as science, and therefore even a small increase in quality can greatly impact academic achievement in reading.
The more gentle urban slope shows that improvements to resource quality do not have as great of an impact on PISA scores. We believe this is due to the many other factors that are improved in urban areas, as described in the regression results for Latin America. |