Data sgp is an informational database that contains a variety of different types of data. It is used for many purposes including analyzing educational assessment data. It also provides a variety of other useful information for teachers and administrators. For example, it can provide information on student growth percentiles. These are a measure of how much students have grown relative to their academic peers. Students that grow at higher rates than their peers are considered to be doing better.
In previous articles, we have studied relationships between true SGPs and covariates such as student background characteristics, grade, school, and teacher. We found that these covariates explain a large percentage of the variation in true SGPs across grades and subjects. However, we have not yet investigated how to model these relationships in a mathematical framework. In this article, we use a latent variable regression model to do so. The specification of this type of model leads directly to the definition of true SGP functions, and Monte Carlo methods can be used to study features of their distributions that would be difficult to explore based solely on estimates.
As described in the Supplemental Material (available online), a number of group mean differences are reported for both math and ELA on the SGP report cards. These group mean differences are computed by cohort and subject, and contrast students who are in the given group with all other students. The groups include gender, race/ethnicity, and home language status. The negative differences in the FRL row of Table 3 for math suggest that students in this group have lower SGPs on average than students who are not in the FRL program for both years of testing, while the positive differences in the Asian and Other Home Language row of Table 3 indicate that these students have higher SGPs on average than other students.
To determine the SGPs of each student, the data sgp database compares a current year’s test score with students who scored similarly in prior years. These are known as a student’s “academic peers.” For each grade and test subject, the data sgp database looks up a list of students in Wyoming who have similar academic paths, as measured by their previous year’s test scores. The data sgp database then calculates the percentile of a student’s current year’s test score relative to this academic peer group, and reports it on the SGP report card. This report card can be viewed by students and parents, along with the other academic achievement and demographic information contained in the SGP report card. In this way, the data sgp database allows families to see how their children’s progress compares with that of other students in the state and nationally. The percentiles can also be compared over time, as is shown in Figure 1.