Relationship Between the TCAP and the Pearson Benchmark Assessment in Elementary Students’ Reading and Math Performance in a Northeastern Tennessee School District

• Main Author: Dugger-Roberts, Cherith A.
• Format: Others
• Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2014
• Subjects: Benchmark; Formative Assessment; Student Achievement; TCAP; Elementary and Middle and Secondary Education Administration
• Online Access: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/2330; https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3683&context=etd

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if there was a relationship between the TCAP test and Pearson Benchmark assessment in elementary students’ reading and language arts and math performance in a northeastern Tennessee school district. This study involved 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students. The study focused on the following subgroups: gender, Title I school status, and socioeconomic status as determined by free and reduced-price meal benefits. Test scores of students taking the Pearson Benchmark assessment in the fall, winter, and spring of the 2011-2012 academic school year and the TCAP in the spring of the 2012 academic school year were compared. Test scores were collected from 5 elementary schools. A total of 1,069 students were included in this study. The analysis focused on 10 research questions. Data collected for this study were entered into an Excel data file for analysis using IBM-SPSS. The research questions were examined using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients, the t test for independent samples, and the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to account for differences in a set of 2 dependent variables. Based on the analyses and findings of this study, there appears to be a positive relationship between the TCAP test and Pearson Benchmark assessment in elementary students’ reading and language arts and math performance in a northeastern Tennessee school district. This relationship extended across students’ gender, Title I school status, and socioeconomic status as determined by free and reduced-price meal benefits. Major recommendations from this study included the use of formative assessment benchmark tools to generate timely data aimed at the improvement of student learning and achievement, tracking the time spent on benchmark testing and carefully evaluating whether this is the optimal use of student academic time, analyzing the use of formative assessment and the relationship to teacher growth and development, and considering the development of the whole child as opposed to strictly focusing on quantitative academic measures to define student success.