This case study explored how a teacher, Ms. Walter, and her students experienced a unit of study on market structures in an Advanced Placement (AP) Microeconomics course. We employed qualitative research methods, drawing on the work of Nuthall and Alton-Lee, to connect students' experiences of classroom instruction to their reasoning on an…

The first step in teaching-to-understand economics is not teaching "the rules," but working with fundamental economic models from the outset. Many of the concepts in economics are illustrated through models. Students must: (1) be able to draw these models; (2) understand the assumptions of the models; and (3) use the models for analysis.…

Participation in rigorous high school courses such as Advanced Placement (AP[R]) Physics increases the likelihood of college success, especially for students who are traditionally underserved. Tackling difficult multiple-choice exams should be part of any AP program because well-constructed multiple-choice questions, such as those on AP exams and…

This paper discusses issues related to the design and psychometric work for mixed-format tests --tests containing both multiple-choice (MC) and constructed-response (CR) items. The issues of validity, fairness, reliability and score consistency can be addressed but for mixed-format tests there are many decisions to be made and no examination or…

The psychometric considerations and challenges associated with including constructed response items on tests are discussed along with how these issues affect the form assembly specifications for mixed-format exams. Reliability and validity, security and fairness, pretesting, content and skills coverage, test length and timing, weights, statistical…

Dorans and Holland (2000) and von Davier, Holland, and Thayer (2003) introduced measures of the degree to which an observed-score equating function is sensitive to the population on which it is computed. This article extends the findings of Dorans and Holland and of von Davier et al. to item response theory (IRT) true-score equating methods that…

Online high schools are growing significantly in number, popularity, and function. However, little empirical data has been published about the effectiveness of these institutions. This research examined the frequency of group work and extended essay writing among online Advanced Placement Program® (AP®) students, and how these tasks may have…

Presented at the Annual National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) in New York in March 2008. This presentation explores how different item weighting can affect the effective weights, validity coefficents and test reliability of composite scores among test takers.