Data SGP refers to an aggregated collection of student achievement and learning data accumulated over time by educators to assist with understanding student development. This information can be used by educators to shape classroom practices or evaluate school/district performance as well as being aggregated for wider research initiatives.
SGP measures relative student growth compared to students with similar prior test scores (academic peers). It is important to keep in mind that SGPs are not absolute values as they are calculated using statistical estimation methods that may include error and uncertainty; nonetheless, SGPs provide an objective measure of student development across time frames and schools/districts.
SGPs require access to longitudinal student assessment data in two formats, WIDE and LONG, wherein each row represents one student and each column represents variables associated with them at different times. When one installs the SGP function suite, one also gains access to two examples of WIDE data sets (sgpData) as well as LONG data sets (sgpData_LONG). To assist users in setting up longitudinal data.
The sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER data set is an anonymized lookup table which provides the instructor associated with each students test record. This is necessary as students may be assigned multiple teachers throughout a year and it would not be possible to know precisely which teacher an individual student was with at each assessment point in time.
The sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER_LONG data set provides an anonymized lookup table of instructors associated with each student’s test records during a year. This data allows users to examine how instruction impacts student performance by looking up potential instructors associated with individual test records; students may have multiple instructors over time. Users can utilize both of these data sets from the sgpData GitHub repository.