A student growth percentile (SGP) describes a student’s growth relative to other students with similar prior test scores (their academic peers). This information can be shared in percentile terms that are familiar to many teachers and parents. SGPs are calculated from a combination of student assessment score data, including the most recent assessment and at least two prior assessments. A SGP can be calculated for an entire school or a subset of students, such as the group assigned to a teacher in a given year.
Data sgp is a tool for conducting SGP analyses in R. It includes functions for calculating student growth percentiles and estimating SGP projections. It is important to note that SGP analyses require a large amount of data and can be very computationally intensive. This is because the calculations for SGP projections involve learning a complex model from a large dataset of historical data. This modeling is very time consuming and requires significant memory space to store the covariance matrix. Fortunately, the SGP package provides wrapper functions that simplify these computations for operational analyses.
The SGP package also allows users to visualize student SGP data by generating tables. These tables can be displayed per site or teacher, listing the Site/Teacher SGP Multi-Year Weighted Average and Overall SGP Rating Score. The table also displays SGP data for the selected subject(s).
SGP tables can be generated by importing data from the sgpData package and selecting a reporting timeframe. The sgpData package contains a number of data files, including the exemplar LONG data file sgpData_LONG and INSTRUCTOR-STUDENT lookup files sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER. These files contain the student identifier, grades, and scale scores for a 5 year period. The first column, ID, gives the unique student identifier and the next 5 columns, GRADE_2013, GRADE_2014, GRADE_2015, and GRADE_2016 give the student assessment score for each of these years.
In addition to displaying SGP data, the SGP package also makes it easy to conduct a side by side comparison of a site or teacher. This can be done by using the report function prepareSGP. This report will create a table that compares the student’s multi-year SGPs with those of other students from the same site or teacher.
SGP is an important measure of student progress toward proficiency, and it has many applications in education. However, it is important to note that SGP does not necessarily predict future student achievement, nor should it be used as a substitute for classroom instruction or other measures of student performance. In addition, SGP does not account for a range of factors that influence student learning, such as socioeconomic status or individual differences in motivation and talent. For these reasons, it is important to use multiple sources of student data when making instructional decisions. A well-designed system for collecting, analyzing, and distributing student growth data will enable educators to make informed educational decisions. This will ultimately lead to greater student success and more equitable outcomes for all learners.