What is Data Sgp?

Data Sgp is a tool that compares assessment scores of students against those of academically-similar peers to reveal insights into how well students are performing relative to their peers – information which allows educators to formulate plans to enhance student performance. Students and their parents can use data sgp to better understand the progress they are making in their education and to learn about ways to improve their performance.

Student growth percentiles are calculated through comparing a student’s score on a test section with that of students who have similar academic histories and then weighting those comparisons to produce a ranking of a student within his/her cohort from 1-99; higher numbers indicate higher relative growth. While this can provide valuable information for educators, it can also be misleading for students with superior academic abilities as a low score on a single test section could reflect either difficulty with the subject matter or an absence of effort by the student. As such, SGPs are often susceptible to spurious correlations and should be analyzed carefully.

The NJSMART SGP tool provides educators with the ability to generate mSGPs for each of their students, and for each teacher in their classroom, using data that is collected and stored on a district’s educational management system (EMS). Educators can then share this information with their parents and with other interested individuals by providing a link to the mSGP data website. In addition, mSGPs are included in educator summative evaluations.

SGP analyses are designed to be simple and straightforward, and the majority of time required for these analyses is spent on data preparation. Once data are prepared correctly, however, the analysis process itself is relatively fast and efficient. We can assist districts with preparing and running these analyses.

To perform SGP analyses, the district will need access to longitudinal (time dependent) student assessment data. These data are typically stored in WIDE format, with each case/row representing one student and each column containing variables associated with that student at different points in time. The sgptData_LONG and sgptData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER data sets provide this type of longitudinal student assessment data in LONG format for 8 content areas (3 windows annually). sgptData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER includes an anonymized lookup table that associates a teacher to each of the student’s test records.

Once a district has completed the SGP data preparation and analysis steps, it will be ready to import and validate its mSGP results and utilize them in the evaluation process. For 2022-2023, mSGP will count for 5% of a qualifying teacher’s and 10% of a principal’s and AP/VP’s evaluations. As with other components of an evaluation, mSGPs will be weighted and aggregated prior to being added into the final evaluation score. To help facilitate this process, the sgptData_LONG data set contains a number of additional variables including VALID_CASE, CONTENT_AREA, YEAR, ID, SCALE_SCORE and GRADE. These variables are necessary to verify that the mSGP data is valid and accurate. In the future, these variables may be incorporated into other SGP analyses to enhance their utility and accuracy.