Analysis of 2017 AP CS exam participation from Barbara Ericson

Like last year, I’m pleased that we can rely on others to write the blog post on Barbara Ericson’s annual AP CS exam data analyses.  The College of Computing at Georgia Tech just wrote a nice description of the findings here: Positive Signs, But Diversity Still Lagging in AP Computer Science Exam Participation, and quoted in part below. Barb’s detailed analyses can be found here, and her detailed gender and race analyses are here.

Barb has been doing more visualizations of her data.  The GVU Center at Georgia Tech produced this nice summary of 20 years of AP CS A data, by state. Of the images she’s produced, this is the one that I find most compelling — the number of exam-takers per 100,00 people in the state.  There are some big goose eggs and many single digit numbers out there.

Increasing female & minority access

According to Barbara Ericson, Georgia Tech research scientist and author of the analysis, the introduction this year of a new AP CS P course and exam contributed to the increases.

“This is exactly what we hoped for. The CS principles course is on par with a college-level intro course for non-CS majors, so it is more accessible to more people,” said Ericson.

Officials had estimated nearly 20,000 AP CS P exams would be taken this year. However, Ericson said the actual number topped 40,000.

“Although overall growth in female and minority participation in the AP CS A exam was relatively flat this year, we’re hopeful that the introduction of the P exam will help swell A exam participation rates in the next few years.”

AP Computer Science A

Despite marginal growth among underrepresented students, overall participation in the AP CS A exam grew by 11.2 percent year-over-year in 2017. A record 60,519 U.S. high school students took the exam with an overall pass rate of 61.8 percent, up more than a percentage point from the previous year.

“It’s great to see growth across the board, but there’s still a long way to go before AP computer science is as available in U.S. classrooms as, say, AP Physics or Calculus,” said Ericson.

More than 170,000 students took the AP Physics 1 exam this year, while more than 316,000 took the AP Calculus AB exam.