Student Growth Percentiles (SGPs) measure a student’s progress on MCAS relative to students who have performed like them in the past. The higher the SGP, the more a student has grown.
The SGPs in data sgp are determined by using the observed distribution of scale scores across several years. In order to be most accurate, it is important to use a wide set of data. This is why sgpData contains a sample of five years worth of assessment data in WIDE format. It serves as an exemplar for the data used by the lower level studentGrowthPercentiles and studentGrowthProjections functions.
sgpData is a large data set with many tables that present various views of the students’ progress over time. It is a very useful tool to help teachers and school leaders understand how their students’ growth compares to the growth of their academic peers, and it can also be used to determine what steps are needed for each student to reach or maintain proficiency in the subject area.
To make it easier to analyze the data, sgpData provides many tables that display percentile rank results for each student. The first column, ID, provides a unique student identifier. The next five columns, GRADE_2013 – GRADE_2017, provide the grade level of each student’s assessment score in each of those five years. The last table, SS_2013 – SS_2017, displays the numeric scale scores associated with each of these assessment occurrences.
In addition to SGP results, sgpData includes several other statistics and tables that are helpful to educators. For example, the sgpData_CONTENTS table shows how much of the curriculum was covered during each of the five years that a student’s data were collected.
Another table, sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER, displays the instructors assigned to each of the test records in sgpData. This can be helpful to identify the instructors who have taught a particular student, and it can also be useful for teacher evaluation purposes.
SGP analyses are most accurate when a student has had multiple opportunities to take the Star examinations, and this is why it is important that schools update their data regularly. Teachers can easily access this information by using the studentSGPs function in the sgpData application.
SGP calculations work best when the results are presented in terms that are familiar to classroom teachers and school administrators, such as percentile ranks. Therefore, sgpData contains several tables that display percentile rank results for each of the tests in the Star assessment. These tables are particularly helpful for teachers and administrators who want to quickly assess a student’s progress in relation to their academic peers. These percentile rank tables are available for all Star examinees from the 2013 – 2017 school year, and they can be easily accessed by selecting the desired window in the data sgp report customization process.