ACT Growth Modeling Resources

Growth models use longitudinal assessment data to monitor the progress of students and schools. The Student Growth Percentile (SGP) model describes how well a student performed relative to peers with similar score histories. SGPs provide a normative measure of growth, describing growth relative to other students. SGPs can be used to address important questions such as:

  1. How much growth is needed to become on target for college and career readiness?
  2. How did my student’s growth compare to other students nationally?
  3. How much does growth in my school vary across subject areas, grade levels, and student subgroups?
  4. Has growth at my school improved over time?

Resources for SGPs are provided for ACT assessments, including ACT Aspire Summative, PreACT, and the ACT test. The resources provide a means to measure growth across assessments (e.g., ACT Aspire Summative to PreACT, ACT Aspire Summative to ACT, and PreACT to ACT). Below, SGP “lookup” tables are provided for:

  • ACT Aspire for grades 3-10.
  • ACT Aspire grade 9 to PreACT grade 10
  • ACT Aspire grade 10 to ACT grade 11
  • PreACT grade 10 to ACT grade 11
  • ACT grade 11 to ACT grade 12

The tables provide the SGP value (ranging from 1 to 100) associated with each combination of current-year test score and prior-year test score. For example, suppose a student scored 411 on the grade 4 ACT Aspire Mathematics test and 415 on the grade 5 ACT Aspire Mathematics test one year later. His SGP would be 59 (as shown in the table below, which is an excerpt from the 2016 version of the ACT Aspire SGP lookup table).

version current_grade subject prior_score current_score growth_percentile
2016F 5 Mathematics 411 411 16
2016F 5 Mathematics 411 412 24
2016F 5 Mathematics 411 413 35
2016F 5 Mathematics 411 414 47
2016F 5 Mathematics 411 415 59
2016F 5 Mathematics 411 416 73
2016F 5 Mathematics 411 417 81

 

The lookup tables provide an estimate of the SGP for each possible combination of prior year and current year test scores. The SGPs are updated periodically to reflect the most recent longitudinal data from ACT assessments. The updated SGPs are provided for all subject areas: English, mathematics, reading, science, ELA, STEM, and Composite. (Note that ELA scores are not available for PreACT because there is no Writing test).

The SGPs are estimated using quantile regression methods (Koenker, 2005) by the SGP R package (Betebenner, VanIwaarden, Domingue, Shang, 2014). While the SGP model can use multiple years of prior test scores as inputs, the lookup tables provided here are based on a single prior-year score.

The SGPs are updated over time as larger and more diverse reference groups become available. Below, the most recent SGP lookup tables are provided, along with earlier versions of the tables.

Test 1 Test 2 Grade Levels Growth Period Version
ACT Aspire ACT Aspire 3-10 1 year 2020: Sample of examinees who tested in consecutive years, using data collected from fall 2015 through fall 2019 (CSV)
ACT Aspire ACT Aspire 3-10 2 years

 2020: Sample of examinees who tested two years apart, using data collected from fall 2015 through fall 2019 (CSV)
ACT Aspire The ACT 10-11 1 Year 2020: Sample of examinees who tested in consecutive years, using data collected from fall 2015 through spring 2020 (CSV)
ACT Aspire PreACT 9-10 1 year 2020: Sample of examinees who tested in consecutive years, using data collected from fall 2015 through spring 2020 (CSV)
PreACT The ACT 10-11 1 Year 2020: Sample of examinees who tested in consecutive years with 10-14 months between tests, using data collected from spring 2016 through spring 2020 (CSV)
2019: Sample of examinees who tested in consecutive years with 10-14 months between tests, using data collected from spring 2016 through spring 2019 (CSV)
2018: Sample of examinees who tested in consecutive years with 10-14 months between tests, using data collected from spring 2016 through spring 2018 (CSV)
15-19 months 2020: Sample of examinees who tested in consecutive years with 15-19 months between tests, using data collected from spring 2016 through spring 2020 (CSV)
2019: Sample of examinees who tested in consecutive years with 15-19 months between tests, using data collected from spring 2016 through spring 2019 (CSV)
2018: Sample of examinees who tested in consecutive years with 15-19 months between tests, using data collected from spring 2016 through spring 2018 (CSV)
The ACT The ACT 11-12 6 Months 2016: Examinees who tested in consecutive years, using data collected from 2013 through 2016 (CSV)

 

References

Betebenner, D.W., VanIwaarden, A., Domingue, B., and Shang, Y (2014). SGP: An R Package for the Calculation and Visualization of Student Growth Percentiles & Percentile Growth Trajectories. R package version 1.2-0.0. URL.

Koenker, R. (2005). Quantile Regression. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.