Data SGP is a statistical software package that utilizes large scale longitudinal education assessment data to analyze student growth percentiles and provide projections/trajectories of future progress based on large-scale longitudinal assessments. Designed for use by students, teachers, administrators, parents and researchers. Available free online and as an alternative to spreadsheet-based regression models.
The SGP package provides several functions, such as prepareSGP, analyzeSGP and combineSGP that are commonly implemented simultaneously for operational SGP analyses. Furthermore, wrapper functions abcSGP and updateSGP provide additional simplification of source code associated with SGP analysis by “wrapping” these six steps into single function calls thereby streamlining source code related to such analyses.
PrepareSGP uses LONG data, sgpData_LONG, and INSTRUCTOR-STUDENT lookup files (sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER), to create the SGP object Demonstration_SGP. analyzeSGP then performs SGP analyses for all years and content areas within this dataset; producing student growth percentiles and projections using student growth coefficient matrices while showing progress students need to make toward meeting their targets.
CombineSGP is designed to incorporate the results derived from analyzeSGP back into Demonstration_SGP@Data and produce scale scores associated with SGP targets as well as lagged baseline student growth percentiles and projections.
SGP metrics provide a more accurate representation of student progress than simple raw score trends because they take into account that the same student may have improved or worsened on different sections. This factor should be kept in mind when assessing high achieving and underperforming students since maintaining previous scores does not always indicate growth.
Therefore, SGP can serve as part of an overall evaluation and improvement plan for all students. Furthermore, it can help administrators identify students likely to require extra support as well as provide them with resources needed for improvement. Schools which recognize underperforming or struggling academic students early can use this strategy to take corrective actions that ensure future course successes for these pupils. Note that data sgp should not be seen as the only solution, but only one of many tools educators can utilize to assess and improve student learning. SGP methodology must be seen as a collaborative effort requiring collaboration among educators in order to produce meaningful results; ultimately it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure each child reaches success.