Merits of Advanced Placement Reexamined

Gollub and Spital reply: We appreciate the thoughtful letters our article has stimulated. The Physics Panel Report of the NRC study explicitly recommends an introductory course prior to AP, and we agree with Art Hobson on the importance of teaching concepts in depth, not only before AP, but also as part of it. Students often do not have time for two physics courses in their program. Currently, the problem is much more serious in physics than in chemistry, which typically comes earlier. What will happen if “physics first” catches on? Some schools are now teaching conceptual physics in the ninth grade, followed by an optional AP course in the junior or senior year. That approach seems promising.

Michael Wood sees the AP program as fundamentally wrong. We point out many problems, but our assessment is that the AP program makes positive contributions to serious science study in many schools. The NRC report includes specific recommendations for improving the AP curriculum and exams. Requiring the exams might well be problematic because of the cost. Some states, by subsidizing exam costs, make the exams more widely and equitably available.

Still, we are not advocating AP as the only or best option for advanced study in physics or the other sciences. The full NRC report has an extensive discussion of the International Baccalaureate program, and other approaches are treated briefly. Also, implementation of the present AP program varies widely from school to school. The AP “syllabus” that Wood mentions is actually little more than an outline. Many AP teachers do in fact design their own courses.

The panel recommended that “formal calculus should not be required” for the new standardized mechanics. Woods perhaps misinterpreted that recommendation to imply that no calculus should be used in the entire program. That was not the intention. It is certainly not true that dropping the calculus requirement would reduce mechanics to memorized equations. An excellent understanding of elementary mechanics can be achieved by students who have a solid grasp of algebra and the concepts of limiting slopes and areas.

Many experienced high-school teachers have found that complex calculations monopolize students’ attention at the expense of central organizing ideas like conservation of energy. We also need to be concerned about equitable access to advanced study. In many schools, calculus comes late, and not all students take it. Our advice, if implemented, would somewhat raise the mathematical level for those currently taking AP Physics B, and would maintain the accessibility of advanced mechanics study to a wide variety of students. We stress that the panel makes this recommendation for mechanics only and expects that formal calculus will continue to play a central role in the advanced study of electricity and magnetism.

Greg Jacobs properly emphasizes the pressure that teachers receive from students and parents. The NRC committee and panels included many teachers, so we are, of course, aware of this pressure. However, even if the courses are redesigned with less emphasis on the precise replication of college courses, they will continue to be important for documenting students’ ability to handle challenging college-level material, and will therefore continue to favorably affect admissions. Although that positive impact can continue to be used for motivation, we think that the best way to motivate students is to increase their success in learning rather than to try to convince them that the distasteful medicine of AP physics will be beneficial.

Marcelo Alonso detected a typographical error, for which we apologize. The College Board publication refers to “circular motion,” not “circular momentum.”

We strongly disagree with many of Robert Mullins’s assertions. The NRC panel did not criticize the AP Physics B course as being “too broad to be stimulating,” but rather too broad to allow learning in depth. However, if the B course is taught in two years, as some schools are doing, it is quite a reasonable curriculum. We agree that the problem of breadth versus depth also exists in college courses, and the NRC report points out that colleges also need to be more realistic. Oddly enough, the complete AP Physics-B program is more compressed than many college courses, in which instructors often choose to omit topics.

The NRC panel certainly did not recommend “isolating physics from the rest of the nonscience high-school curriculum.” In fact, the report recommends increasing attention to interdisciplinary opportunities.

Although mechanics provides abundant intellectual challenge, the Physics Panel agrees with Mullins that the study of other topics should also be available to advanced physics students. Ordinarily, the common mechanics unit we propose would be covered in one semester; that would leave the second semester free for topics like electricity and magnetism or modern physics. Although students are excited by exposure to the forefront of physics, we should not underestimate the satisfaction they can derive from mastering mechanics: It is close to their everyday experience, and even mechanics contains challenging surprises—chaos, for example. Too many students are lost at an early stage. Because few students place out of a full year of physics at present, an agreed standard for mechanics could at least allow a larger number of students to omit the first semester of college physics.

The full NRC document and the Physics Panel’s report are available online at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10129.html .