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Analyze Student Growth Data

By Google for Education Published: Aug 27, 2020 14m Beginner (8)

   Expected Lesson Time: 14 minutes

Go through the sections below, then test yourself (and get credit) by
doing the Lesson Check.

Getting an Accurate Picture of Student Growth

It is crucial to know what areas of their learning students need additional help with. To nd
out, educators constantly collect and analyze data about their students. Effective data
analysis can detect weak areas of student growth that otherwise might not have been
apparent.

However, measuring student progress is only as good as the data collected and the

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Using a variety of assessments to examine student growth over time, we can create an
accurate evaluation of each student’s performance. There are a number of tools built into
Google Sheets that allow teachers to organize, sort, and lter the data about students to
accurately re ect how well they are learning. We will cover the basic formulas and functions
that are applicable to many of the scenarios faced by teachers.

Useful Formulas and Functions

There are so many features built into Google Sheets that it can become overwhelming to know
which are most bene cial for teachers in their day-to-day. Here we will cover many of the most
common and handy functions available to educators.

Determining Which Formula or Function to Use

It’s important to know which features are available for us to use. A
good place to start is to search the functions list. Use keywords to
see if any formulas can do what you’re looking for. For example,
search for “case” to nd a formula that will instantly change text into
lowercase.

Learn how

Spreadsheet Vocabulary
It’s always essential to establish a common terms that users can
reference. This includes terms like: cell, function, range, value,
format, and more. Knowing these terms will help you to understand
Google Sheets a little better.

Learn how

What Type of Data Is It?

When collecting data, you must de ne what type of data it is (text,
dates, numbers, currency, etc.). When you select a particular format
for a cell, it will determine how that data is displayed and used. For
example, if you format a column as text and enter numbers into
each cell of that column, you wouldn’t be able to add them all
together as they are treating your data like words rather than
numbers. You would have to set the formatting to Number before
doing any calculations.

Learn how

Formula Format and Sums

Every formula has to start with an equals sign (=). That tells Sheets
that this is a function rather than ordinary text or numbers. After
that will be the formula name, followed by the range of data being
referred to.

For example, the formula: “=Sum(A1:A5)” adds together the cells

from A1 to A5. Alternatively, if you needed to add together all the
values in the “A” column, you could use (A:A) for your formula’s
range: “=Sum(A:A)”.

Learn how

Averaging Numbers
This function works in a similar fashion to the Sum function, but
averages the numbers found in a range.

Learn how

Sorting Numbers, Text, or Dates

If you select a column, or some data within a column, you can sort it
in ascending or descending order. To do this, select the data you
want to sort and then right-click (or click on the Data menu), and
click on Sort range. Here you can specify how you want to sort the
data, and even sort by multiple columns. This is perfect for
organizing many rows of student data so you can quickly see all the
data for a speci c student.

Learn how

Finding Unique Values from a Range

Use “=Unique(A:A)” when you need to nd a list of all the unique
values in a column (column “A” in this case). In effect, this formula
removes duplicates and can be a very handy technique. For
example, if students entered their names into a Form, you could use
“=Unique” to get an error-free list of every student who has
participated, even if they submitted the Form more than once.

Learn how

Counting the Number of Values in a Range

Use “=Count(A:A)” when you need to know how many values are in a
range. It’s important to note that “=Count” works for counting
numbers and “=CountA” works for counting cells with text data in
them. This function could be useful to determine how many
questions a student has answered as they ll out a questionnaire.

Learn how

Determining Whether a Response Is Correct Is Easy with the IF

Function
A very useful function is the IF function. This function works by
returning a speci c value if criteria (set by you) are true and a
different value if false. For example, if you asked students to, “Type
the name of the tallest mountain in the world in cell A2.” You could
determine if the responses are accurate using “=IF(A2=”Everest”,
“Correct”, “Wrong”)”.

Learn how

Creating a Data Dashboard

Scenario

This year your school has moved to standards-based grading. As a group, your department
has decided on four standards for your Spanish class that will be assessed during the rst
grading period of the year. There is already a pre-approved rubric for each standard that is
based on a four-point scale: this is what you’ll use to assess all student work for the term.

During your rst meeting, your team plans out the major assessments so that each standard is
assessed at least three times. It is school policy that their nal mark for each standard be
based on the average of the scores that they get throughout the grading period.

You have had some experience with spreadsheets, so the team nominates you to build the
template that will be used to analyze the student data for the year. It will be used to store the
following data:

Student
Assignment
Date
Standard One Score
Standard Two Score
Standard Three Score
Standard Four Score
Comments

Each assignment will be assessed on no more than two of the standards, so you’ll always
have a couple of blank cells in the Score columns. However, keep in mind that every row
should have at least one score value.

In the end, you want to be able to report on individual student performance for each standard.
Additionally, you want to be able to see how the overall class is doing on each standard.
Remember that you have to ensure that each standard is assessed at least three times.

How might you set up a data dashboard to meet these needs?

Jot Down Your Ideas

Use this as your temporary notepad, or jot down your ideas on paper.

Save Clear

 See what we came up with

Lesson Check

Now let's do a quick check to make sure you got this lesson (and that we give you credit for it)!

1. What Google tool creates a digital questionnaire to collect entries from users?

Google Search

Google News

Gmail

 Google Forms

Check Answer

 Correct!

2. Which function ignores duplicates in a list and returns a single instance of each item?

Sort

 Unique

Average

Transpose

Check Answer

 Correct!

3. Which of the following are types of data you can store in a Google Sheet? (Select all
that apply.)

Videos

 Numbers

 Text

 Dates

Check Answer

 Correct!

4. Users can only use Google Sheets on a Chromebook.

True

 False

Check Answer

 Correct!

Next Activity
Tell Your Student Growth Story