Advanced Placement Exam Research Articles

Assessing the Advanced Placement Program in American Politics

The Advanced Placement (AP) program has been growing rapidly in the last decade. In 1987, a new AP program was begun in American Government and Politics and its impact is beginning to be felt in high schools and colleges across the country. However, there has been no objective assessment of the program communicated and discussed throughout the political science community.To begin—what is the AP program? The Advanced Placement program offers the equivalent of introductory college courses which may lead to college credit upon satisfactory performance on an AP exam. The AP program is administered by the College Board which contracts with the Educational Testing Service (ETS) to operate the AP examinations. “About 31 percent of American secondary schools currently participate, serving approximately 17 percent of their college-bound students in this way. This use, by both schools and students, has been growing steadily in recent years” (Guide to the AP Program, 1986, p. 4).The College Board highlights the positive aspects of the AP program for learning, education, and all concerned—students, teachers, and administrators. AP programs are considered part of society's effort to revitalize the educational system in the United States, especially in high schools and higher education. The quality and implications of the AP program are all positively portrayed. Yet, the implementation of the AP program has not been closely examined and publicly discussed.

1984: Latin in the United States Twenty Years After the Fall

ABSTRACT After a precipitous decade‐long decline during the late 1960s and the early 1970s, interest and enrollments in secondary school Latin language and literature courses have been steadily rising across the nation since 1976. A disturbing consequence of this otherwise felicitous trend has been the development of a serious shortage of qualified Latin teachers in most areas of the country over the past five to ten years. This study examines trends in both high school and college enrollments, as well as such other indicators of interest in the language as student and professional organization memberships and College Board Achievement Test and Advanced Placement exam participation rates. The seriousness of the teacher shortage is underscored and some measures for alleviating the problem are briefly suggested.

High School Calculus and First-Quarter College Calculus Grades

Teaching calculus in school has been one of the more controversial aspects of the school mathematics curriculum. (See Butler, Wren, & Banks [1970, pp. 532-533] for a discussion of the history of calculus as a school topic.) In spite of the controversy there is little empirical evidence on the effects of teaching calculus in school. Neeley (1961) analyzed selected achievement data and concluded that high school calculus is largely a waste of time (p. 1005). However, Hildebrant (1962) pointed out that this conclusion did not follow from the data. McKillip (1966) found that for students who did not receive advance placement, one semester or less of school calculus did not significantly affect first-quarter college calculus grades, but two or more semesters of school calculus did significantly improve first-quarter college calculus grades. Shimizu (1969) found no evidence to support the belief that school calculus improved college performance. However, the statistical test used involved correlations and did not compare average college calculus grades. Thus the conclusion does not seem to follow from the analysis reported. Hubley and Maclay (1970) reported that students in an advanced placement calculus course did well on the advanced placement exam. However, no statistical tests were made. Sorge and Wheatley (1977), in a study of college calculus grades and amount of school calculus, concluded that if students study calculus in school they should do so for one year or not at all (p. 645). One weakness of these studies is that the ability of the students in the different groups was generally not considered. For example, calculus is likely to be the 12th-grade mathematics course for high-ability students in

The Advanced Placement Exam in Biology

The Advanced Placement Exam in Biology