The data SGP tool allows educators to easily monitor student growth along with achievement. Students can easily understand their progress by being shown whether they are developing, approaching, meeting or exceeding expectations. Additionally, this tool shows projections for next year based on whether their growth expectations have changed. Easy to use and provides invaluable data that can assist teachers and families make informed decisions.
Student Growth Percentiles (SGPs) provide an objective way of measuring relative performance on subject-matter tests. An SGP score shows how much one’s assessment score has changed relative to those who took similar prior test history on MCAS exams for that grade and content area.
An SGP can be calculated for every student by analyzing up to two years’ worth of previous MCAS results and using quantile regression, an analytical procedure designed for statistical comparison between students with similar assessment histories in their grade regardless of demographic characteristics or program participation.
SGPs aim to strike a balance between achievement and growth over time for students. Statewide SGP averages provide an overview of typical growth across schools, districts, and student subgroups; they can help schools compare their own growth with that of the state as a whole or indicate whether theirs falls above or below average in comparison with it.
The data sgp tool offers four sample SGP analyses using BAA Secure Site student assessment data. Two analyses, sgpData_LONG and sgptData_LONG, can be used by lower level functions like studentGrowthPercentiles or studentGrowthProjections while two other examples (sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER and sgpData_CURENT), use the teacher-student lookup table provided with SGPdata package to produce teacher level aggregates or projections.
sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER is an anonymized data set which contains instructor numbers for every student in every testing window along with their associated assessment records. Finally, sgpData_CURENT provides students with their most up-to-date SGP.
SGPs offer a powerful new tool for evaluating student progress; however, further evaluation will require further study. SGPs do not represent an alternative source of assessment information for schools and districts – rather they complement what have traditionally been called traditional achievement reports as an additional assessment measure. Existing tools may still be utilized, but these newer techniques provide a more comprehensive assessment of students. Educators can utilize the tool to determine how a student’s Student Growth Potential compares to that of his or her academic peers and identify the potential effects of changes to instruction or student characteristics. As new research emerges and features are added to SGPdata package, educators may use it to track improvements in accuracy and speed of this tool – please reach out if you have suggestions or requests for future functionality and thank you for being patient as we refine it together!
