An Investigation of Black and Hispanic Participation and Performance in Advanced Placement Courses in a School Division that has Targeted Increased Participation as a Goal

Participation in Advanced Placement (AP) courses and success on associated exams has become the standard bearer for post-secondary admission. While AP began as a mechanism to support the academic needs of the most advanced students, today it is offered to a diverse range of students. Increasing AP participation and improving AP performance for traditionally underrepresented populations to include Blacks, Hispanics, students with disabilities, and those from lower socioeconomic families has been an ambition of American school districts for the past several decades. This study used AP participation and performance data to investigate the progress one school district has made regarding Black and Hispanic students for the eight school years between 2011-19. Progress was measured by increases in percentages of Black and Hispanic students enrolled in AP courses who sat for an associated AP exam and the percentage of each cohort who earned scores of three or higher on those exams. Significance was determined using Pearson's chi-square and one-way ANOVA tests. Study results show that, among other findings, there was no significant relationship in AP participation for either Black or Hispanic students and that both Black and Hispanic students demonstrated significant improvement in AP performance between school years.