The Relationship Between Student Performance on ALEKS Software and Standardized Tests

Abstract

Educational technology is evolving and growing at a faster pace than ever before. Such fast-paced growth makes it difficult to evaluate and measure its effectiveness in a timely manner and creates a need for independent academic literature in this area. This study serves to address to this need and contribute to the body of literature. The intent of this study is to identify the nature of the relationship between middle school students’ progress on ALEKS mathematics software during a school year and their performance on mathematics state assessments. The study is conducted in a Midwest urban charter school with approximately 300 students. This is a quasi-experimental quantitative research design with a sample size of 336 students in grades sixth through eighth between the years of 2015 and 2019. Archived data from these years have been compiled and analyzed using a Pearson correlation and t-test to clarify the nature of the relationship between independent and dependent variables.