2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The Advanced Placement (AP) program offered by the College Board is recognized for college preparatory education with a curriculum offering rigorous coursework geared towards equipping students with the essential skills and knowledge for admission and success in Institutions of Higher Educations (HEIs). The objective of this study is to determine if there is a significant difference between students’ passing rate in AP Physics when compared to Biology, Chemistry and Environmental Science for the past 23 years. AP annual score distribution dataset was ascertained from the College Board website, but lacking corresponding anonymized student profiles, which constrained the analysis to performance comparison across AP subjects. Friedman non-parametric test was performed followed by Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test for pair comparison. The Friedman test revealed a significant effect on exam passes of 3s and higher in the sciences, χ^2 (3, n = 92) = 232.135, p < .001. Kendall’s W test indicated a moderately high significant level of concordance between Physics 1 and Biology, and Physics 1 and Chemistry y for AP passes of 5s with Kendall’s W = 0.682. Inferences from these results indicate that AP Physics is clearly different and more challenging than other sciences and possibly requires pedagogical interventions, and more innovative teaching and learning strategies that have the capability to impact both conceptual understanding and performance outcomes. These findings support prior perceived difficulty in the teaching and learning of physics; this difficulty arises from rigorous mathematics, complexity of concepts, and deficiency in problem-solving skills. Further research is needed to understand the key factors that influences students’ choices of AP subjects: demography of students and their performance, students’ preparation methods, difficulty physics concepts, and instructors’ assessment and feedback strategies. Since physics is a fundamental science requirement for matriculation into competitive engineering programs, and fewer students are taking AP physics when compared to the other AP sciences, more research is needed to help physics students develop greater conceptual understanding, physics reasoning and examination taking skills.