Evaluation of the Sustainability and Effectiveness of Inquiry-Based Advanced Placement Science Courses: Evidence from an In-Depth Formative Evaluation & Randomized Controlled S

本研究考察了新修订的AP生物和化学课程对学生对科学探究的理解和应用能力的影响，对学生成功参与大学水平材料的信心的影响，以及对学生的影响。大学STEM专业的入学率和持久性。AP生物和化学课程是一个重要的教育项目，在全国范围内大规模运作。本研究还考察了各学校在实施AP课程方面的差异程度，以确定学生学习学科内容以及参与科学探究所需的知识和技能的机会范围。新开设AP课程的学校是这项研究的参与者，他们所经历的挑战和成功也是研究计划的组成部分。华盛顿大学、乔治华盛顿大学和SRI国际的研究人员正在进行这项研究。本研究的研究设计包括形成成分和随机对照实验。形成要素包括观察，访谈和调查的教师和学生的AP课程研究。实验设计包括随机分配学生到提供的AP课程，并跟踪两组实验组和对照组学生的表现，从他们的预科到高等教育经历。调查测量学生在AP课程中的经历，他们学习AP科学的动机，他们在高中课程中经历的压力水平，他们的科学探究技能和学科知识的深度。这项研究调查了那些进入学院和大学的学生选择的专业，以确定他们在多大程度上继续学习科学和工程。这个项目让教育工作者了解学校在扩大AP课程时所遇到的挑战和成功。教师的经验，谁将教学生有不同的准备，告知未来需要的专业发展和支持。该项目提供了学生ap课程对他们进入高等教育经历的影响的评估，以及他们继续准备成为未来的工程师和科学家的意图。它为政策努力提供信息，以改善获得更严格的STEM高级课程的机会，并提供强有力的实验证据，证明AP课程的影响。该项目有可能向教育研究人员展示如何研究大规模运作的教育项目。

This study examines the impact of the newly revised Advanced Placement (AP) Biology and Chemistry courses on students' understanding of and ability to apply scientific inquiry, on students' confidence in successfully engaging in college-level material, and on students? enrollment and persistence in college STEM majors. AP Biology and Chemistry courses represent an important educational program that operates at a large scale across the country. The extent to which the AP curricula vary in implementation across the schools in the study is also examined to determine the range of students' opportunity to learn the disciplinary content and the knowledge and skills necessary to engage in inquiry in science. Schools that are newly implementing AP courses are participants in this research and the challenges and successes that they experience are also a component of the research plan. Researchers at the University of Washington, George Washington University and SRI International are conducting the study.The research design for this study includes both formative components and a randomized control experiment. Formative elements include observations, interviews and surveys of teachers and students in the AP courses studied. The experimental design includes the random assignment of students to the AP offered and follows the performances of the treatment and control students in two cohorts into their matriculation into postsecondary educational experiences. Surveys measure students' experiences in the AP courses, their motivations to study AP science, the level of stress they experience in their high school coursework and their scientific inquiry skills and depth of disciplinary knowledge. The study examines the majors chosen by those students who enter into colleges and universities to ascertain the extent to which they continue in science and engineering.This project informs educators about the challenges and successes schools encounter when they expand access to AP courses. The experiences of the teachers who will be teaching students with variable preparation inform future needs for professional development and support. The project provides estimates of the impact of students' AP-course taking on their progress into postsecondary educational experiences and their intent to continue to prepare to be future engineers and scientists. It informs policy efforts to improve the access to more rigorous advanced courses in STEM and provides strong experimental evidence of the impact of AP course taking. The project has the potential to demonstrate to educational researchers how to study an educational program that operates at scale.