Merits of Advanced Placement Reexamined

Jerry Gollub and Robin Spital’s recommendations for improving the Advanced Placement physics program ( Physics Today, May 2002, page 48 ) are excellent, as far they go. But they omit the fact that AP physics makes sense only if it is preceded by a broad conceptual physics course. The College Board states that “the strongly recommended format for both [AP] Physics B and Physics C courses is a second-year course following the usual introductory physics course” that “better prepares [students] for more analytical approaches taken in AP courses.” ¹ Unfortunately, most AP students have had no previous course that emphasizes concepts over calculations (see Physics Today, October 1999, page 68 ).

For at least three reasons, a broad and conceptual first course is an essential prerequisite to any more technical course. First, as the College Board and lots of physics education research have shown, a grounding in the concepts of physics is an essential prerequisite to a meaningful math-based treatment.

Second, for many practical reasons, math-based high-school courses must concentrate on Newtonian mechanics. So-called modern physics, our current view of the physical universe, is hardly mentioned. Many future biology, medicine, engineering, and other students, then, will never take a course that presents such central concepts as quantum uncertainty and the relativity of time.

And third, traditional math-based courses give no time to such societal topics as energy resources, global warming, pseudoscience, and scientific methodology. Yet it is fairly obvious that industrialized democracies cannot survive unless their citizens are literate in such topics. The American Association for the Advancement of Science puts this fairly strongly: “Without a scientifically literate population, the outlook for a better world is not promising.” ²

Students who skip a broad conceptual course to enter AP physics are harmed more than helped; they would opt for the broader course were the AP choice not available. Although AP physics is better than no physics at all, a conceptual course plus AP is far better still.