Pivoting in a Pandemic: How the College Board Made Advanced Placement Testing Possible During COVID-19

• In Event: AERA Division D International Committee Invited Session. Overcoming Measurement Challenges: An International Perspective

Abstract

When stay-at-home quarantines across the United States necessitated state-wide school closures, the College Board embraced the challenge of delivering an at-home digital assessment to AP students worldwide. Before proceeding, we surveyed AP students. An astounding 91% wanted the opportunity to take the exam, despite the pandemic.

We had three objectives when making the pivot to online testing: (a) preparing students; (b) accounting for differences in the mode of delivery; and (c) ensuring a psychometrically sound process for delivering secure, fair and appropriate tests to all examinees regardless of mode of delivery. To prepare students, we launched a series of subject-specific daily lessons delivered directly to students on YouTube by experienced AP teachers and disciplinary luminaries. The typical AP Exam relies upon the robust test security offered by a paper/pencil test administered in a proctored school environment. However, the 2020 AP Exams had to be designed for at-home digital testing where these standard test security features do not exist. We began with the presumption that the tasks on the 2020 AP Exams must be as similar as possible to the types of assessments that students had been practicing all year in our digital formative assessment tool, AP Classroom, and publicized in each subject’s course and exam descriptions. Our exam design had to account for synchronous global test-taking and foil attempts of student collaboration during the exam. In addition, we leveraged and modified (where necessary) the AP Program’s rigorous psychometric procedures to deliver fair exam scores despite the necessary differences in exam mode, length, and security features in the 2020 AP Exams. Despite the effects of a global pandemic—students showed up for their exams as promised and performed well: 2.6 million students took 4.75 million AP exams (for comparison: 2.8 million students took 5.1 million AP Exams in 2019). The number of scores qualifying for college credit and/or placement in 2020 was virtually identical from past years. These three pivots gave students the chance to demonstrate their mastery of critical content and skills assessed in the AP Exams.

Author

• Allison Thurber, The College Board