Data SGP for Educators
Data sgp is a collection of tools that allows educators to analyze and access Student Growth Percentiles (SGP). SGP compares a students current assessment score against the scores of students with similar prior test scores, thus providing insights into the performance of a student relative to their academic peers. The information provided by SGP is useful for identifying students that need additional support, differentiating classroom instruction for high-performing students and more fairly comparing students who enter school with very different levels of academic proficiency.
SGP is calculated by dividing a student’s current assessment score by the mean or average of the assessments of students with similar prior test scores, then multiplying the result by 100. This results in a percentage score that indicates how far a student has progressed relative to their academic peers, and serves as a more meaningful measure of achievement than traditional metrics like mean or median.
Educators can use SGP to evaluate the performance of students, teachers and schools/districts. SGP can be used in conjunction with other assessment data sources to better understand why a student may perform well or poorly, and it can help identify areas of focus for improvement. However, there are many limitations and caveats associated with SGP and it should be considered a supplement to existing assessment data rather than a replacement.
To make SGP analysis as straightforward as possible, the tools provided by data sgp are designed to be run through R – an open-source programming language that can be downloaded and installed free of charge for Windows, Mac OSX or Linux. In order to run the SGP analysis tools, users will need a basic level of familiarity with the software. To facilitate this, a detailed SGP Analysis Vignette is available to help guide users through the required software/hardware setup, data preparation and advanced analysis functions.
Data sgp provides access to five years of vertically scaled student assessment data that is consolidated into a spreadsheet for each individual student. Each spreadsheet includes a student identifier and five columns of data: sgpData_ID, sgpData_TEST_SCORE, sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER, sgpData_PROGRAM_SCORE, and sgpData_STUDENT_PERCENTILE. The first column, sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER, is an anonymized lookup table that includes the instructor number assigned to a student during each year of testing. The higher-level SGP analysis functions rely on the sgpData spreadsheet to provide the necessary meta-data for their calculations.
The sgpData spreadsheet is also used by the SGP Statewide Summary report and can be accessed from the Summary Report tool by selecting a student and choosing “View sgp Data”. This data set is available in long format and most higher-level analyses use this data as their starting point. Educators can also create their own custom sgp data sets using the tools in the Data SGP repository. The spreadsheet is designed to allow educators to easily filter, sort and export the data to meet their specific needs. To do this, simply click on the “Filter and Sort” icon in the upper right-hand corner of the page.