AP Validity Study Findings

Institutions & Years  Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College  Clayton State University  Kennesaw State University  University of Georgia Cohort: First-time entering students in Fall of 2013 tracked and

AP Exams ABACCSUKSUUGA Biology Calculus AB Chemistry English Physics B Psychology Statistics US Government & Politics  Due to the fluid nature of AP US History Exam credit policies, this subject was unable to be included. 3

Comparing Sequent Course Performance Second Course Institution A AP Exam Score Introductory Course Institution A 4

 Policies at all four institutions: A score of 3 or 4 on either AP English Exam earns credit for ENGL 1101 A score of 5 on either AP English Exam earns credit for ENGL 1101 and 1102  Comparison to be made on ENGL 1102 course grades, comparing AP English Exam credit-holding students to students without AP English credit who took ENGL 1101 Students with AP English score of 5 are ignored because they have credit for ENGL 1102 AP English Language & AP English Literature 5

Sequent Course Performance: ENGL 1102  Students with AP English credit for ENGL 1101 who went on to take ENGL 1102 performed as well as or better than students who did not have credit for ENGL 1101 and took it at the institution. APNon-AP Pr > |t| NMean (Std. Dev)N ABAC (0.73) (1.20) * CSU (1.64) (1.14) KSU (0.83)1, (0.93) <0.0001* UGA1, (0.51) (0.60) <0.0001* * Denotes statistical significance, p<0.05 6

Sequent Course Performance: ENGL

 Credit and placement policies vary somewhat across institutions, as do numbering systems.  Only UGA and KSU have at least 15 scores of 3 or higher on Calculus AB.  Both institutions grant credit for MATH 1113 (Pre-calculus) for an AP Calculus AB Exam score of 3 or higher.  Both institutions grant credit for Calculus I for an AP Calculus AB Exam score of 4 or higher. UGA: MATH 2250 KSU: MATH 1190  Students with an AP Calculus BC Exam score of 3 or higher were removed from analyses. AP Calculus AB 8

Comparing Sequent Course Performance: Calculus Calculus I Calculus AB 3 Pre-Calculus Calculus II Calculus AB 4-5 No AP credit AP credit 9

Sequent Course Performance: Calculus I 10

Comparing Sequent Course Performance: Calculus Calculus AB 3 Pre-Calculus Calculus II Calculus AB 4-5 No AP credit AP 3 Calculus I AP

Sequent Course Performance: Calculus II

 Credit and placement policies vary somewhat across institutions.  Only UGA has enough students.  UGA’s policy: AP Biology Exam score of 4 earns credit for BIOL 1107 and 1107-Lab, and a score of 5 earns credit for BIOL 1107 and 1107-Lab and BIOL 1108 and 1108-Lab.  We investigated lecture and lab separately. AP Biology Pre and Post Redesign 13

Sequent Course Performance: BIOL 1108/L

 Redesigned AP Biology Exam first administered May AP Biology Redesigned Only 15

Sequent Course Performance*: BIOL 1108/L *Redesigned AP Examinees only

 Credit and placement policies vary across institutions, as do numbering systems.  Only UGA has enough students.  UGA’s policy: AP Chemistry Exam score of 4 earns credit for CHEM 1211 and 1211-Lab, and a score of 5 earns credit for CHEM 1211 and 1211-Lab and CHEM 1212 and 1212-Lab.  We investigated lecture and lab separately. AP Chemistry 17

Sequent Course Performance: CHEM 1212/L

 AP Physics credit and placement policies vary somewhat across institutions.  Only UGA has enough students.  UGA’s policy: AP Physics B Exam score of 3 or 4 earns credit for PHYS 1111 and 1111-Lab, and a score of 5 earns credit for PHYS 1111 and 1111-Lab and PHYS 1112 and 1112-Lab.  PHYS 1112-Lab does not have course grades associated with it at UGA, so it will not be explored here. AP Physics B 19

Sequent Course Performance: PHYS

 At all four institutions, a student with an AP Psychology Exam score of 3 or higher is awarded credit for PSYC  There are no prescribed sequent courses for Psychology.  ABAC and CSU did not have enough students. AP Psychology UGA PSYC 3230: Abnormal Psychology PSYC 3980: Research Design KSU PSYC 3305: Life Span Developmental 21

Subsequent Course Performance: Psychology

 Credit policies are similar across all four institutions, but course numbering and acronym systems differ.  Only UGA had enough students.  UGA’s policy grants credit for STAT 2000 to students with an AP Statistics Exam score of 3 or higher. AP Statistics 23

Sequent Course Performance: STAT

 Only UGA had enough students.  UGA’s policy grants credit for POLS 1101 to AP U.S. Government and Politics Exam scores of 3 or higher. Students then go into POLS 2000 (Introduction to Political Science). AP U.S. Government & Politics 25

Sequent Course Performance: POLS

 Overall, students with AP Exam credit performed as well as or better than students without AP Exam credit who took the introductory course on the same campus as the subsequent/sequent course.  The one exception is CHEM 1212-Lab, where AP credit-holding students underperform compared to non-AP. This was pre-redesign of the AP Chemistry Exam.  In some cases, such as Calculus AB, the difference between groups is rather large, with findings consistent across multiple institutions. Concluding Remarks 27

Questions? 28 College Board Researcher: Kelly Godfrey, Ph.D. Research Scientist, Higher Education Research