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

Project Summary

1. Intellectual Merit
Type of Proposal: Full Research and Development
Strand: Scale-up & Sustainability

The Advanced Placement curriculum developed by the College Board aims to prepare high school students for the rigor of college coursework. In collaboration with NSF, the NRC, and educators across the nation, the Board is revising AP science courses to better develop students’ ability to conduct scientific inquiry. The revised courses emphasize depth of inquiry and application as opposed to the acquisition of limited knowledge in many content areas. The new courses in biology and chemistry will be launched in 2012, 2013, and 2014. The Board plans to provide supports to teachers to help them implement the new AP curricula, including online resources and community building activities.

The goals of our study are to conduct a formative and summative evaluation of the new curriculum and produce findings that can be used by the Board and educators to strengthen the teaching of advanced science courses in high school. We will recruit and provide resources to schools to launch a new inquiry-based AP Biology or Chemistry course, and randomly assign students within the recruited schools access to the newly-offered courses. To evaluate and improve the fidelity of AP course implementation, we will conduct surveys, interviews, and observations of teachers and students in the AP courses, and provide real-time feedback to educators. Our summative evaluation will determine the effects of the scaled-up, inquiry-based curricula on students’ ability to conduct scientific inquiry and their overall educational performance and aspirations, including the number, quality, and type of colleges to which students apply and enroll. We will examine variation in the effects of the new courses according to students’ prior level of preparation and the level of fidelity with which the courses are implemented.

2. Broader Impact
The results of this study will impact schools’ willingness and capacity to offer AP and other college-level inquiry-based science courses and will enhance scholarship on the effects of inquiry-based science teaching and learning by:

(1) providing evidence of the challenges and successes encountered by schools that expand access to rigorous inquiry-based science courses and to teachers who teach the courses to students with different levels of preparation;

(2) providing estimates of the impact of taking these courses on students’ progress in higher educational attainment and continuation on the path to becoming future scientists and engineers; and

(3) creating opportunities for regular communication between practitioners and researchers around implementation and program improvement, thus enhancing the infrastructure for research and education.

The results of this study will provide the first experimental evidence on the effects of taking an inquiry-based AP science course on students’ educational progress generally and their success in STEM fields in particular. As there have been widespread federal and state policy efforts to increase the availability of AP courses and the number of students taking such courses, the results of this research will help inform such policy efforts in the future.