What is Data SGP?
Data SGP is the collective of aggregated measures used to analyze student achievement and learning data at a district level. SGP analyses can help educators shape classroom practices, evaluate school/district performance and support larger research efforts.
The data sgp package contains 4 examplar data sets for use with SGP analyses. One, sgpData, specifies data in the WIDE format that’s used by the lower level SGP functions studentGrowthPercentiles and studentGrowthProjections. The other three, sgpData_LONG, sgptData_LONG and sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER, specify data in the LONG format that’s utilized by higher level wrapper functions such as abcSGP, prepareSGP and analyzeSGP. Depending on the complexity of an analysis and your plans for running it operationally year after year, you may want to consider formatting your data in the LONG format which offers numerous preparation and storage benefits over the WIDE format.
When SGPs are aggregated using medians, they’re less influenced by the small percentage of students who can’t keep up with their peers. This is an especially important feature for accelerated programs where a small number of students can’t progress at the same rate as their classmates. When SGPs are aggregated with means, however, these outliers can greatly reduce the overall growth of the program.
In addition to displaying growth percentiles for individual students, this dataset also allows districts to compare their students’ performance to that of similar students from across the state. This comparison can provide insight into the effectiveness of a particular program and identify areas where additional training or other interventions are needed.
SGPs are calculated by comparing the most recent grade-level test score with the prior grade-level test score for students in grades 4, 5, 7, and 10. For high school students, this includes the results of the previous two years’ worth of MCAS tests. This data is used to create student profile/growth graphs (SGP) on the Macomb-Clare-Gladwin website.
SGP data is also available for teachers through the sgpData package. The sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER table, an anonymized lookup table, provides instructor information associated with each student’s test record. This is especially useful for analyzing the performance of students assigned to multiple instructors for a single content area over the course of one academic year. It can also be used to compare student growth data against teacher-level aggregates for individual students and groups of students by grade level, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER data set is available in a variety of formats for download at the DESE website. The table is currently updated for data through the 2015-16 school year, including the 2014-15 Badger test scores. The table is updated in real time when new test results are released. For more detailed information, see the sgpData user guide or contact DESE’s SGP team with any questions.