Several avenues are open to students who wish to study advanced science or mathematics in high school, which include Advanced Placement courses and teacher-designed courses unaffiliated with organized programs. We employ a retrospective cohort study of 4,691 nationally representative college students at 34 randomly selected, colleges and…

Interview data from secondary and postsecondary science instructors explored their in-depth views on preparing students for college science. Professors expressed a high level of consensus concerning two factors: general student skills and mathematics preparation. Teachers, who expressed lower levels of consensus, did agree on the importance of…

Survey data from 8,594 students in 55 randomly chosen colleges and universities finds that those having passed an AP science exam earn somewhat higher college science grades, but not enough to assume prior mastery. Moreover, half of this performance difference appears to be related to demographics and high school coursework and not to students' AP…

Using a national survey of more than 7,000 students from 128 different college introductory science courses, the authors compared students who experienced Block scheduling and Traditional scheduling in high school. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)

This study investigated the interaction between students' academic background (high school grades, standardized exams, and enrollment in advanced high school courses) and how much autonomy they reported having in high school science through labs and projects. The objective was to see if students who reported experiencing more or less self-directed…