Data SGP Tool for AP and Growth Percentile (SGP) Analysis at the Classroom Level

Data SGP Tool for AP and Growth Percentile (SGP) Analysis at the Classroom Level

The data sgp tool is designed to allow educators and their teams to analyze student growth percentile (SGP) and achievement percentile (AP) data at the classroom level. This tool allows authorized users to upload the district student data file from BAA Secure Site and display a graphic representation of both achievment and growth for each individual student. Authorized users can also drill down to a student detail view that provides multiple additional pieces of information including: the student’s growth percentile and corresponding growth level (high, low, typical); scale score data; performance levels; attendance rate in the growth year; and teacher details such as assigned instructor number.

SGP is a measure of relative growth that produces a percentile ranking of a students scaled score change from one assessment to the next in comparison to academic peers with similar starting points. For example, Student A has an SGP of 63, which means that he or she scored higher than or equal to 63 percent of his or her academic peers in this year’s MCAS test.

SGP scores are calculated based on trends in statewide performance data each year, and it is important to remember that the results may shift from one year to the next. For example, students across the state might experience more or less growth in some years due to a variety of influences such as student experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic or differences in the overall performance of other students.

While the SGP data is very informative for teachers and their teams, it is not used in any way for educator evaluation purposes because Massachusetts law requires report cards to use a different measure of value added, achievement. While the SGP data is available to districts for their use, it is recommended that schools not engage in any high stakes uses of this data until the 2018-19 school year.

The data sgp package includes 4 examplar data sets for use with SGP analyses. The first, sgpData, specifies data in the WIDE format that’s used by lower level SGP functions like studentGrowthPercentiles and studentGrowthProjections. The remaining two data sets, sgpData_LONG and sgptData_LONG specify data in the LONG format that’s used by higher level functions such as abcSGP, prepareSGP, and analyzeSGP.

While it is not necessary to have all of the data set available to run SGP analyses, we recommend that the user download and save at least the first two data sets for reference purposes. This will make it easier to navigate the data and find the information that is needed to run an analysis.

As with all data analysis, most of the time spent on an SGP analysis is in data preparation and a great deal of the errors that are encountered revert back to issues with the data preparation process. This is why we encourage our users to utilize our SGP tutorials to learn more about the requirements for proper data preparation and analysis. Once the data is prepared properly, SGP analyses are relatively straightforward and simple to conduct.