What is Data SGP?
Data sgp is a free tool for analyzing educational assessment data. It is written in the statistical programming language R and can be used on computers running Windows, OSX or Linux. It provides a variety of analysis tools and graphical displays for interpreting data. It can also be run as a script, allowing it to be automated for use with larger groups of students or teachers. The tool can be downloaded from GitHub and used with any software that supports the R platform.
Data SGP is an effective way to identify both high achieving students as well as those who need additional support in meeting achievement goals. In addition, it allows educators to understand how much progress needs to be made over a given window of time in order for students to meet or exceed expectations. In this way, SGP can provide an important supplement to educator performance goals and objectives.
SGP is a measurement of student relative growth, calculated by comparing students’ current scores to their previous ones. The resulting number indicates how much more, or less, the student has learned over the course of an academic year. For example, a student’s SGP score of 75 indicates that they have made more progress than 75% of their academic peers.
In order to perform SGP analyses, an educator must have access to longitudinal (time dependent) student assessment data. Typically, this data is stored in WIDE format with each row or case representing a single student and each column representing variables associated with that student at different points in time. The SGP package offers an exemplar data set, sgpData, that models the format for the data to be used with the lower level studentGrowthPercentiles and studentGrowthProjections functions. It also offers a long format data set, sgpData_LONG, which contains an anonymized lookup table that associates a teacher to each case/row in the wide data set.
Both of these data sets can be analyzed with SGP; however, the long format data set has several preparation and storage advantages over the wide data set. Educators should carefully consider which format they choose for their operational data sets before performing SGP analyses.
Although SGP can be an excellent tool for identifying high achieving students, it is not an appropriate substitute for official state achievement targets or goals. Instead, SGP can help educators understand how much progress must be made in a specified period of time to meet the desired proficiency standard and can serve as an invaluable communication tool for stakeholders who need to know that a proficient target will not be achieved by every student immediately. In addition, it can be a powerful tool for communicating to parents and stakeholders that students are making adequate progress towards their achievement goals. This is especially important for students with unique learning needs, who may require extended periods of time to reach proficiency. The SGP method can help them make meaningful gains over time, despite these challenges.