Alexandria Senior High School, a large public school located in the geographic center of Louisiana, boasts approximately 1400 students and has a diverse student body. Students come from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds with 49% of students identifying as White/Caucasian, 46% identifying as African American, 2% identifying as Latino, 3% identifying as Asian, and .4% identifying as Native American in 2018. At Alexandria, 54% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch.
Over the past few years, the school has worked hard to improve student access to AP courses and continues to support teachers with additional trainings and resources. Albert has been an important tool in Alexandria’s AP classrooms since it was first introduced to teachers and students in 2017. Since implementing Albert at the school-wide level**,** Alexandria has seen the overall pass rates for AP tests increase by approximately 9%. In 2016, prior to using Albert, about 27% of Alexandria’s AP students passed with a score of 3 or higher, compared to 39% in the state of Louisiana and 60% globally. In 2018, after only one year of implementation, the AP pass rate for Alexandria’s AP students climbed to 36%, compared to 42% in Louisiana and 61% globally.
In addition to an increase in pass rates, Alexandria’s overall mean score on AP exams has steadily climbed from 2016 to 2018. Alexandria’s students have especially shined in AP Calculus AB, AP English Language and Composition, and AP English Literature and Composition, where the average student score grew about .5 points in each course.
Teachers at Alexandria Senior High School have a lot of experience teaching AP courses. Nearly all of the school’s AP teachers have attended a College Board training and are familiar with the expectations and rigor of AP exams. Nonetheless, over 89% of those teachers opted to participate in an Albert training led by a member of the Albert School Success Team. These in-person and online trainings helped teachers fully utilize beneficial Albert features such as custom assignments and data analytics. After attending these trainings, teachers at Alexandria rated their familiarity with Albert’s data tools (e.g. assignment reports, student data views, etc.) a 7.3 out of 10. One AP Psychology teacher at Alexandria reported, “The trainings from Albert were great foundations and then I figured out a lot on my own.” Albert trainings not only enabled teachers to understand how to use the platform, but also taught them how to use data to address individual student needs and implement data-driven instruction.
For this study, nearly 10,000 student guesses were analyzed from approximately 1200 different Albert assignments to better understand how Albert is used in AP classrooms. We collected four years’ worth of data — half from the two years before Albert was introduced, and half from the two years after teachers started using Albert. The data collected included test scores, the number of student guesses, active students, active teachers, and assignments created. The usage measures were used to determine “high usage” and “low usage” subjects on which we conducted further analysis. It was predicted that subjects with higher usage would have greater improvements in AP exam pass rates, and after analyzing the data this is seen to be true.
Alexandria AP teachers used Albert in all 11 AP courses offered at the school to varying degrees. We broke the subjects studied on Albert into three categories: high usage, medium usage and low usage. High Albert usage means that the average student made over 50 guesses in that subject over the school year, while low usage means that the average student made fewer than 25 guesses in that subject over the school year. We focused our analysis only on subjects that fell into the high or low usage categories.
In the high-use subjects, AP pass rates jumped from 20% to 29%. Among low-usage subjects, the pass rate went from 48% to 49%. The large jump from 20% to 29% in the high-usage courses demonstrates that for subjects where the pass rate is quite low, exposure to practice questions on Albert can significantly improve student outcomes.
We also noticed interesting trends amongst classrooms with low usage. In the 2017-2018 school year, in classes where the baseline pass rate was already high (48%), low usage was observed. This suggests that teachers who taught subjects with high pass rates were less likely to seek out a new resource for additional practice. The opposite trend was observed with teachers whose subjects had low baseline pass rates (20%); high usage was observed. It’s likely that these teachers were more aware of their classrooms’ needs for additional resources, and as a result, utilized the site more heavily, leading to greater increases in scores.
It takes the combined effort of teachers, administrators, parents, and students to improve AP exam pass rates, and there is no silver bullet to improving test scores. While many variables exist, this study showcases how trained teachers who implemented Albert in their classrooms observed an increase in AP test scores in as little as one year. The largest jump in pass rates (+9%) was correlated with high usage teachers and students, showing that frequent Albert users can expect to see greater improvements in scores. This data also suggests that teachers who are new to AP or have struggled to manage the rigor of an AP course may find the support they need by using Albert.
Consistent practice with assessment-style questions — particularly in the hands of a teacher committed to analyzing data and re-teaching as necessary — will lead to higher pass rates. Even successful classrooms with pass rates of 50% or higher can benefit from the rigorous practice and data-driven instruction that comes from more training and higher usage. Creating a culture that encourages teachers to utilize Albert with fidelity builds a framework to improve outcomes for all students.
