The Advanced Placement® (AP®) Program offers high school students the opportunity to take rigorous coursework in high school and receive college credit for AP Exam scores that meet or exceed the requirements of their attending institution. Students receiving AP credit are typically exempted from an introductory level course or series of courses…

This report summarizes the Austin Independent School District bilingual and English as a second language programs students' academic performance during 2017-2018. Students' advanced placement course performance, state academic tests (STAAR and EOC) performance, and graduation and dropout rates are summarized. [For the Executive Summary, see…

This study examines the relationship between high school efforts at post-secondary preparation for college bound students and the expectations of college and university admissions personnel. The Advanced Placement (AP) teachers and administrators at a rural Northwest Florida high school were administered a quantitative survey in order to collect…

Friendships serve as a source of support and as a context for developing social competence. Although advanced coursework may provide a unique context for the development of friendships, more research is needed to explore exactly what differences exist. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the Adolescent Health and…

Research has repeatedly demonstrated the positive effects of acceleration for gifted and talented students. This study expands the literature by not only evaluating the impact of early grade skipping on high school and college outcomes but also examining the role of postacceleration opportunities on subsequent performance. Using a representative…

We have conducted an education project to communicate the wave energy concept to high school students. A virtual reality system that combines both hardware and software is developed in this project to simulate the buoy-wave interaction. This first-of-its-kind wave energy unit is portable and physics-based, allowing students to conduct a number of…

In the 2012/13 school year American Indian students accounted for 1.1 percent of K-12 students nationwide and 1.4 percent of K-12 students in North Carolina (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.). Research has identified substantial achievement gaps between American Indian and other students on national tests, in graduation rates, and in…

This phenomenological case study attempts to understand the phenomenon of intertextuality of traditional novels and graphic novels, and how it may or may not contribute to transference of one mode of literacy to another. The study's sample was seven Grade 12 Advanced Placement English/language arts students and their teacher. I conducted my…

The Advanced Placement Program® (AP®) was created to provide access to rigorous, college-level curricula to motivated and prepared high school students. This study evaluated whether the AP Exam scores from the summative exams associated with 10 courses were valid for the placement of students into higher-level college courses in the subject area…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the extent to which differences in student performance were present between Black males in Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Texas on selected AP examinations from the 2001 through the 2012 exam years. Specific AP exams included in this study were the English Language and…

Purpose: One purpose of this study was to analyze the overall AP exam performance of Hispanic students of Mexican origin from California, Texas, and Arizona. A second purpose was to conduct a comparison of Hispanic student exam scores from California, Texas, and Arizona on mathematics and English exams. Specifically, the performance of Hispanic…

In 2017-2018, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) launched Achieve 180, a program centered upon a comprehensive action plan to increase student achievement at 45 schools, including the 27 schools that received the Texas Education Agency Campus Accountability rating of "Improvement Required" (IR) in 2016-2017 and 18 former IR…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine differences between boys and girls in their performance on STEM related AP exams. Specifically, gender differences were examined for the following STEM related AP exams: Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Physics B, Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism, Physics C: Mechanics, Chemistry, and Computer Science…

This College Success Research Brief is one of a series of briefs documenting the implementation and impact of Mass Insight's College Success/STEM program. The research briefs are intended to share key findings, highlight ongoing questions and lines of inquiry, and inform the thinking of practitioners and policymakers on how to scale up efforts to…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze ethnic and gender differences in Advanced Placement (AP) exam performance of U.S. high school students. Specifically, the extent to which differences exist in overall AP exam performance scores within and between four ethnic groups (i.e., Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White) was investigated. Within…