Data sgp is a tool for teachers, administrators and families to view the progress of individual students in relation to the progress of similar students. This information is useful in understanding the growth of students and assessing teacher performance. In addition, this information can help families understand and interpret the results of student tests and assessments. The information provided by the SGP database can also be used to help guide learning activities and support for students.
A student’s SGP describes how well a student is performing compared to other students with similar prior test scores (their academic peers). This information can be shared in percentile terms, which are familiar and interpretable to most teachers and parents. As a result, SGPs are attractive to many educators and families as a way to communicate about student achievement.
The SGPs in the Star reports are calculated by comparing the current year’s assessment scores to those from the previous year using a statistical model that estimates how much a student would have scored on the previous year’s assessment had they been tested under the same conditions. SGPs are then adjusted to reflect the differences between a student’s actual and projected score. The SGPs in the Star report are calculated for the entire state, districts and schools and provide both an overall SGP for the school and a group mean difference for each group, including gender, racial/ethnic groups and home language status.
While the SGPs in the Star reports are based on historical data, the SGPs that can be run operationally are updated regularly to ensure that projections for future assessments reflect the most recent available data. As a result, these projections are more accurate than those in the Star reports, and they can be helpful in determining whether a student’s projected score will meet or exceed proficiency.
For this reason, it is important to keep the SGPs and their calculations up to date. This is done by submitting data to the SGP project on a regular basis. Data submission is accomplished by completing the online SGP Submission Form.
The SGP package is written in the open source software environment R. To run the SGP analyses, you must have a computer with R installed. R is available for Windows, OSX and Linux, and is free to use. If you are not already familiar with the R program, it is recommended that you spend some time familiarizing yourself with it before diving into running SGP analyses. In particular, it is important to learn about the difference between WIDE and LONG data formats and how to prepare your data in either format. This is critical if you plan to run SGP analyses on a regular basis. For most analyses, you will want to use the LONG format.