The effectiveness of using the Mississippi Student Progress Monitoring System to improve a district's state test scores

The purpose of this study was to determine if there were differences in MCT2 scores between students who attended a school district that used MSPMS and students who attended a school district that did not use MSPMS. The data for this study were archived and consisted of math and language arts MCT2 scores for two groups of students. The independent variable was the use of MSPMS for progress monitoring and the dependent variable was student scores on the MCT2. All data were analyzed using the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) statistical procedure. In this study the 2008-2009 math and language arts MCT2 scores were the covariate.;Hypothesis one stated that there was no statistically significant difference in the MCT2 language scores of students in Grades 4-8 in a school district using MSPMS and MCT2 language scores of students in Grades 4-8 in a district not using MSPMS while controlling for pre-test differences. The results of the first hypothesis indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between the 2009-2010 language arts MCT2 scores of a school district that used MSPMS and a district that did not use MSPMS. The district that did not use the MSPMS had higher MCT2 Language Arts overall and higher scores in fourth and sixth grades. Hypothesis two stated that there was no statistically significant difference in the MCT2 math scores of students in grades 4-8 in a school district that used the MSPMS and MCT2 math scores of students in grades 4-8 in a district that did not use the MSPMS while controlling for pre-test differences. The results of the second hypothesis indicated that there was not a significant difference in the 2009-2010 math MCT2 scores of the school district that used the MSPMS and the school district that did not use the MSPMS. The district that did not use the MSPMS had higher MCT2 Math scores overall and higher scores in sixth grade. The district that did use the MSPMS had higher MCT2 math scores in eighth grade. Further study should explore larger populations, assessment instruments of different lengths and fidelity of teacher implementation.