The Data SGP is a powerful new analytical tool to help educators and administrators better understand student learning and performance. By analyzing a student’s assessment scores over the course of multiple years, the SGP reveals patterns and trends that are often difficult to discern from the student’s current assessment score. This information can then be used to inform teaching methods and professional development programs – all of which are key ingredients in improving student achievement!
The SGP is available for free download and runs on any operating system that supports the R programming environment. While some users may have difficulty using the SGP for the first time, there are a number of tutorials and example datasets to help ease the transition. Using the SGP also assumes familiarity with the R software program, which is freely available for Windows, OSX and Linux. In addition, running SGP analyses requires knowledge of basic statistical methodology and basic statistics. These are both skills that can be learned, but it is important to spend some time gaining this understanding prior to starting your own analyses.
To run SGP analyses, a user will need an SGP Data Set. These are a set of anonymized assessment data that are provided in WIDE format. The SGP Data Set sgpData contains five years of vertically scaled data for each student. This data can be accessed by selecting a student in the SGP summary report and choosing the sgpData tab. The first column, ID, provides the unique student identifier. The remaining columns, SS_2013, SS_2014, SS_2015, and SS_2016, provide the student’s assessment scores from each of these years.
SGP is not intended to replace existing student achievement goals and targets, but rather to enhance them. By outlining how much students need to grow in order to meet their achievement targets, SGP allows goals to be more clearly articulated and effectively measured. Additionally, by highlighting students who need to make the largest gains, SGP can help schools target their most intensive instruction.
There are many ways to visualize and share SGP results, from graphs to spreadsheets. Regardless of the method chosen, it is important that the data is well formatted and organized to ensure that the results are meaningful and easy to interpret. It is also essential that any SGP graphs are carefully reviewed before sharing to make sure they are accurate and that they do not contain any errors or omissions.
To learn more about the SGP, check out our website. If you have any questions, contact us online or call the office. We look forward to hearing from you! We hope that you find the SGP to be an effective tool for your school or district!