Data SGP, or Student Growth Percentiles, provide information about students’ academic progress by comparing their performance to that of their peers across the state. SGPs are based on students’ most recent Star assessment and one prior test from an earlier testing window (Fall, Winter or Spring). Educators use SGP to measure students’ growth by determining how much more they need to learn compared to their peers. SGPs are available for students in grades 4 through 11, and are reported on the Student Profile/Growth dashboard in the fall and spring of each school year. SGPs are not used for high stakes evaluations, but instead will be replaced by value-added scores in 2018.
Data sgp is a database that allows users to analyze data and provides an intuitive way for teachers to evaluate students’ progress. The term ‘big data’ is often used to describe datasets that are too large for traditional data management tools, but the SGP database is relatively small in comparison – a few gigabytes at most.
In order to perform analyses using data sgp, the system needs to be properly configured and prepared for usage. This is a time consuming and complex process that requires the assistance of data analysts to complete.
The first step in the process is preparing the database for use. This involves cleaning up the database and making it more easily readable, a process called normalization. In addition, the database must be set up for longitudinal (time dependent) data – that is, data that changes over time. This is a common requirement of many statistical databases and is typically handled using a special record structure known as a longitudinal table.
There are two commonly used record structures for longitudinal data: WIDE and LONG formats. WIDE records consist of rows that are associated with unique students, while LONG records contain columns that change over time. The SGPdata package includes exemplar data sets in both WIDE and LONG format, sgpData and sgpData_LONG, that can be used to demonstrate how to configure and prepare the database for use with the SGPdata functions.
Once the database is configured for longitudinal data, it is ready to begin running SGP analyses. This requires access to the data sgp database, as well as the lower level function calls studentGrowthPercentiles and studentGrowthProjections.
To run the function, the sgpData table must be queried for each student in the school. The sgpData table contains information about each student, including their unique identifier, as well as the scores they received on their assessments over the past five years. To obtain these scores, the table must be sorted by sgpID and then by grade and tested subject.
The sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER table, which is included in the sgpData package, must also be consulted in order to obtain the names of the instructors that taught each student. This is a required step because the student-instructor relationship is used to determine the teacher that should be assigned to each student in each content area for a given year.