Data sgp is a software tool that provides educators with an easy way to compare student and teacher performance against state achievement targets/goals. Educators use these tools to identify students who need additional help in specific subject areas and to monitor progress of high performers. They also use them to inform their instructional decisions and to communicate with stakeholders that proficiency must be reached within a set timeframe. SGP differs from standard growth models and other methods in that it allows schools and districts to tie teachers’ performance to measurable goals, a requirement that is often not fulfilled by standard growth models alone.
SGP is a statistical software application built for the R programming environment. It is a free and open source program that runs on Windows, OSX and Linux and can be downloaded from the CRAN website. While it was designed specifically for educational assessment data the SGP package is flexible enough to be used for any type of statistical data analysis. Running SGP analyses requires access to a computer with R installed and the ability to prepare student assessment data for processing. The bulk of SGP analyses is spent in data preparation; however, the resulting analysis steps are relatively straightforward and should not require extensive prior statistical experience.
The SGP package requires longitudinal (time dependent) student assessment data in either WIDE or LONG format. LONG format data sets offer greater flexibility in data management and typically contain more information than WIDE data sets; however, they can be more complicated to work with. The sgpData_LONG and sgpData_WIDE data sets provided with the SGP package serve as exemplars of the format needed for SGP analyses. Both data sets contain a variable named sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER which represents an anonymized lookup table which associates a teacher to each test record in the long version of the dataset).
The SGP package is capable of performing many different analyses, but the most commonly performed are comparing students’ assessment scores against those of their peers. These comparisons reveal insights into a students’ relative performance and provide teachers with the information they need to make adjustments in their teaching practices. This data is particularly useful when working with special needs students as it can help educators to understand and interpret their students’ results. In addition, it allows teachers to identify patterns in their students’ performance and predict future achievement. By using this data, educators can create plans to best meet the academic needs of each child.