Data sgp is an analysis tool for the statistical software environment R. It was designed specifically for educational assessment data but can be used with any kind of statistical data. It is free to use and requires a computer running Windows, OSX or Linux and access to the R statistical software.
The data sgp package provides functions for the calculation of student growth percentiles (SGP). SGP is an important measure of a students progress because it measures their performance relative to other students with similar prior test scores. Using SGP allows teachers to compare students across schools and districts to see how their students are performing. In addition, SGP can help to identify specific student learning needs so that teachers and administrators can target resources to improve student performance.
The sgpData data set contains 5 years of annual, vertically scaled assessment data in the WIDE format. This exemplar data set models the format of the data that will be used by the lower level SGP functions such as studentGrowthPercentiles and studentGrowthProjections. The sgpData data set also includes state specific meta-data in the embedded SGPstateData object. The sgpData vignette provides more comprehensive documentation on how to use this data set for SGP analyses.
Using wide-format data with the SGP package is, in general, straight forward. However, there are some special considerations when working with sgpData that you should keep in mind.
In the sgpData example above, the first column, ID, provides the unique student identifier. The next 5 columns, GRADE_2013, GRADE_2014, GRADE_2015, and GRADE_2016 provide the grade level of the student assessment score in each year. The last five columns, SS_2013, SS_2014, SS_2015, SS_2016 and SS_2017 provide the student assessment score scaled to the appropriate grade level.
The SGP package is used for the calculation of student growth percentiles and a variety of other educational measurement related functions. It can be downloaded from the GitHub repository for free and requires the installation of the R software. For detailed instructions on how to install and use the SGP package please refer to the vignette and help pages. This is a very flexible package and can be used to calculate and visualize many different kinds of educational metrics. It is a great choice for educational researchers and analysts. The ability to access and analyze large sets of educational data in a straightforward manner is particularly valuable given the resource constraints of most school districts. The SGP package makes it possible to analyze a wealth of data in a relatively short period of time. This can be an invaluable tool for school leaders, teachers and parents who need to evaluate the progress of their students. The SGP package can be easily extended to incorporate new measures and statistical analyses of existing data. This can be done using the scripting language of the R programming language. Alternatively, users can use the R GUI to run the SGP function in a browser window. Both approaches have the advantage of minimizing data manipulation and allowing easy replication and dissemination of results.
