The Role of Student Growth Percentiles in Monitoring Learning and Predicting Learning Outcomes

Abstract

Most formative assessments rely on the performance status of a student at a particular time point. However, such a method does not provide any information on the propensity of the student to achieve a predetermined target score or whether the student is performing as per the expectations from identical students with the same history of academic achievement. Although such a trend has been proposed via the use of the student growth percentiles (SGPs), most of the work associated with SGPs has focused mainly on teacher and school accountability. In this article, however, we illustrate examples in the use of SGPs and entry growth percentile scores to monitor students' learning progress. Monitoring students' learning trends, evaluated in the context of their SGPs and their propensity to achieve the target score, would likely yield meaningful differential information even for students with the same score at a particular point in time.