Students in Massachusetts can see their own progress over time and how they compare to other students with similar prior performance, using an assessment measure called student growth percentiles (SGP). Student growth is an important factor in educator evaluations because it demonstrates the degree to which a teacher has supported a student’s learning. The SGP measures a student’s progress based on the average student growth rate for students with comparable prior test scores (their academic peers).
Data sgp is an open source software package that supports the calculation and display of SGPs. This package is a useful tool for districts that have made a commitment to measuring and reporting student growth, or who want to improve their current assessment systems.
In addition to providing standard reports that report student and school level growth, data sgp also allows users to view data based on a variety of demographic groupings including gender, race/ethnicity, achievement levels, etc. Users can even customize the aggregation of data on the fly to include more or less information.
The package provides a wide range of analyses but does require that the user have access to a computer with the free R software installed. R is available for Windows, OSX, and Linux and can be compiled on many other operating systems as well. Using the lower level functions that do the calculations, studentGrowthPercentiles and studentGrowthProjections, requires WIDE formatted data. The sgpData exemplar data set that comes with the package models the required format.
Each bubble on an SGP graph represents a single student group. Hovering over a bubble displays the number of students, mean SGP, and percentage proficient or advanced for that group. Authorized users can drill down to the detail that provides multiple additional data points including the growth interval (e.g., sixth to seventh grade); student demographics; each student’s SGP and corresponding growth level (high, low, typical); scale score data and performance levels; and attendance rates in the growth year.
The software package is easy to use and a great tool for districts that are just starting to consider student growth in their educator evaluation processes. However, it is important to understand that SGPs are not intended to replace the use of traditional student assessment results in educator evaluations, but to supplement and complement them by highlighting a student’s progress and the extent to which they have mastered content areas.
If you have any questions or comments about the use of this package, please contact us by email at [email protected] or by submitting an issue on GitHub. We will respond as soon as possible. Thanks!