We examined the variation in Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) preclass scores according to the type of physics class a student had in high school. This was done for students who had taken Physics 1 at a highly selective university. The majority of students had taken an Advanced Placement (AP) physics course, allowing us to examine in detail the correlation between FMCE score and both taking an AP course and the score on the AP exam. We also carried out regression analyses to determine how FMCE prescores and course final exam scores depend on taking an AP course and AP exam scores, when math SAT scores are included as a proxy of students’ general level of college preparation. Students who take any type of physics course in high school outscore those with no prior physics experience by 26%, but students who have taken AP physics do not significantly outperform those who have taken a normal high school physics course—many students who took AP physics scored very low on the FMCE. Furthermore, while taking AP physics predicts a statistically significant increase in FMCE scores, the effect size (0.30) is smaller than that seen for math SAT scores (0.47). We found that AP exam scores were not correlated with final exam scores after controlling for math SAT score. In all, the data indicate that, though taking an AP physics course is correlated with greater conceptual understanding of physics, scoring well on the AP physics exam may be a rather weak measure of conceptual understanding of physics or the mastery of physics one would expect students to achieve from an introductory university physics course. This work was done with an unusual population. Further studies are needed to determine how general the weak relationship is between AP exam performance and FMCE performance that we observed.

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AP物理课程教授什么，AP物理考试要测量什么？

我们根据学生在高中物理课的类型检查了力和运动概念评估（FMCE）课前分数的变化。这是针对在一所高度精选的大学修过物理1的学生而进行的。大多数学生都参加了高级AP（AP）物理课程，这使我们能够详细检查FMCE分数与参加AP课程和AP考试分数之间的相关性。我们还进行了回归分析，以确定将数学SAT分数作为学生一般大学水平的替代指标时，FMCE成绩和课程期末考试分数如何取决于参加AP课程和AP考试分数。高中修过任何类型的物理课程的学生的成绩要比没有任何物理经验的学生高26％，但是，修过AP物理的学生并没有比那些参加普通高中物理课程的学生明显好得多-许多修过AP物理的学生在FMCE上得分很低。此外，虽然AP物理学预测FMCE分数在统计学上有显着增加，但效果大小（0.30）小于数学SAT分数（0.47）。我们发现，控制数学SAT分数后，AP考试成绩与期末考试成绩不相关。总体而言，数据表明，尽管修读AP物理课程与对物理的更深入的概念理解相关，但在AP物理考试中取得良好的成绩可能是衡量对物理概念理解或掌握物理的精通程度的一种较弱的衡量标准通过大学物理入门课程来实现。这项工作是在不寻常的人群中完成的。需要做进一步的研究来确定我们观察到的AP考试成绩和FMCE成绩之间的弱关系有多普遍。