Data SGP is a database that stores information about student growth in academic achievement. Educators, school leaders and parents can use this data to help identify those students needing additional support as well as evaluate current educational systems to find ways of improving them. Furthermore, Data SGP may lead to changes in teaching techniques or strategies which have proven their effectiveness at increasing student achievement.
The Data SGP website provides access to student performance and progress information in schools across the United States. States provide this data, which includes standardized test scores, academic achievement data and demographic details that are regularly updated and made publicly available – enabling parents and educators to see how their children compare against students across their state or nation.
Data SGP involves creating growth percentiles and projections/trajectories from large scale longitudinal education assessment data such as test scores, portfolios or grading scales. This type of assessment data may help identify students at risk of not meeting their academic potential as well as assess current educational systems to find ways to enhance them.
Comparative Growth Projection models measure student performance differently, by ranking students against similar prior achievement. This provides more accurate assessments of achievement while making results more applicable to the improvement efforts of schools, districts, and states. Rankings can also be broken down by various factors like gender, race and socioeconomic status – making the data even more helpful in pinpointing areas needing improvement.
SGPs are calculated by comparing the results of two or more assessments taken by an individual student, typically the most recent test serving as the base score and being compared against earlier assessments; this process is repeated for subsequent exams to calculate growth percentageiles used to gauge student progress across each subject area – in MCAS this data includes ELA and math grades 4 through 8, as well as grade 10 where an SGP is available (the only year available for which it exists).
Data SGP utilizes a complex statistical algorithm for its SGP calculations, using latent achievement traits estimated from students and comparing those traits with test scores from multiple exams for each student. This method has proven more accurate than simply comparing individual test scores; thus making SGPs an integral component of research supporting their use. However, this method does introduce estimation errors between prior and current test scores that could result in noisy or inaccurate estimates for SGPs.
To use Data SGP effectively, a computer equipped with R is necessary. You can download it for free from its official R project website and it runs on Windows, OSX or Linux operating systems. In order to conduct SGP calculations properly, lower level functions require WIDE formatted data while higher-level functions like studentGrowthPercentiles and studentGrowthProjections require LONG formatted data.