Using learning progress monitoring to promote academic performance? A meta-analysis of the effectiveness

Abstract

Individualised learner-centred teaching requires the continuous monitoring of students’ individual learning progress. A promising approach that uses recurrent short tests to measure individual learning progress and report the progress to teachers (and students) is learning progress monitoring (LPM). Although some findings suggest that LPM may positively impact student performance, there is also a large heterogeneity in prior results. The present meta-analysis examines the conditions under which LPM effectively improves students’ academic performance compared to business-as-usual instruction. We included 87 effect sizes from 25 studies published before June 2024, including a total of 7,379 students. These studies show a small positive effect (g = 0.30) of LPM on students’ reading, writing, and mathematics performance. Moderator analyses showed that the effect of LPM on academic performance was greater when (i) ongoing consultation was provided for teachers during the implementation of LPM and (ii) teachers received data-specific support on how to adjust their teaching. Moreover, our findings suggest that LPM tests should be administered at least weekly to be effective. Overall, our results show that LPM is well suited to addressing the challenges of student heterogeneity for students with and without educational needs. However, further research is needed to investigate in more detail the mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of LPM, particularly concerning the specific content and the extent of the support that needs to be provided to teachers to maximise the potential of LPM.