AP European History College Comparability Study 2007 A Presentation and Discussion at the 2007 AP Annual Conference, Las Vegas Nevada, June 14 Paul Borysewicz Educational Testing Service

2AP European History, July 14, 2007 The following PowerPoint presentation represents data gathered from a comparability study conducted in During a college comparability study a portion of an AP Exam is administered to college students and the free- response portion is scored during the AP reading. The results of a comparability study is one factor that is considered when setting AP grades in order to ensure that the AP standards are comparable with or higher than the performance of college students who participated in the study.

3AP European History, July 14, 2007 Why do we do comparability studies? To create a better fit between college-level grading standards and AP standards To improve the validity of AP exams and courses

4AP European History, July 14, 2007 How is the study performed? College students are given a mini-version of the exam (one FRQ and 20 MC questions) Their instructors grade the exams on the A-F scale AP readers grade the college essays using the same standards as regular AP essays Statisticians extrapolate an AP grade for each college student and compare it to that student’s college grade

5AP European History, July 14, 2007 Who participated in the 2007 study for APEH? Nearly 700 students taking European history survey courses at 16 colleges: University of South Carolina Upstate University of Southern California Oregon State University University of Maryland Baylor University Elon University Washington University in St. Louis Michigan State University Furman University University of Louisville Purdue University University of South Florida University of New Mexico Duquesne University Iowa State University East Carolina University

6AP European History, July 14, 2007 What were the results of the study? AP students at the 5-4 cut point scored higher than the average score earned by a college student at the level AP students at the 4-3 cut point scored higher than the average score earned by a college student at the B level AP students at the 3-2 cut point scored higher than the average score earned by a college student at the C level AP students at the 2-1 cut point scored lower than the average score earned by a college student at the D level

7AP European History, July 14, 2007 How did the results affect scoring? The cut points for 5-4, 4-3, and 3-2 were unchanged The cut point for 2-1 was raised to bring it more in line with college-level performance at the D level. Thus, there were more AP grades of 1.

8AP European History, July 14, 2007 What was the rationale for the decisions? The average college scores may have been lower than AP scores because of factors unrelated to overall ability (motivation and lack of a truly representative sample) Hence, cut points were not lowered in response to stronger performance by AP students With expansion of AP, there seems to be a larger percentage of poorly prepared or unmotivated students taking the test. This is consistent with an increased percentage of grades of 1.

9AP European History, July 14, 2007 What are the implications of the study for the future of APEH? The study indicated no serious discrepancy between APEH course content and grading standards and those of the college courses in the survey The study is consistent with other evidence indicating an increase in the number of poorly prepared/unmotivated APEH students

10AP European History, July 14, 2007 What can you, as APEH teachers do? Keep doing what you’re doing! Pay close attention to the Course Description and supporting materials (especially as we move toward redesign of the AP history courses) Work on developing students’ writing and analytic skills