Creating a Source-Based Exam: The Evolution of Assessment in the AP Histories

AHA Session 246
Sunday, January 5, 2025: 1:30 PM-3:00 PM
Gramercy (Sheraton New York, Lower Level)
Chair:
Jennifer L. Foray, Purdue University
Panel:
Isiah Cabal, Trinity Preparatory School
Daniel Kanhofer, College Board
Natalie Mendoza Gutierrez, University of Colorado Boulder
Jeremy Neill, College Board

Session Abstract

This round table focuses on the development of the exams for AP European History, AP US History and AP World History: Modern. Utilizing examples of questions spanning a half century of AP Histories assessment, this panel will look at the ways in which the structure of multiple choice and free response questions, as well as the skills that they assess, have changed over the years. Panelists discuss will draw on their experience as test developers, course leads, development committee members and AP graders to discuss not only how questions were developed in the past, but how AP has responded to requests from higher education to craft exams that are reflective of the skills taught and assessed in today’s college classrooms. Jeremy Neill, Course Lead for AP European History, and Dan Kanhofer, Assessment Lead for AP US History, will discuss the evolution of AP exam questions over time at a structural level, focusing on the mid-2010s redesign. Natalie Mendoza, assistant professor of United States history at the University of Colorado-Boulder and member of the AP US History Development committee, will contribute her experience as a member of the development committee that approves all US history questions. She will also talk about her role in finding and editing the sources used in future AP US History exams. Isiah Cabal, AP World History Teacher at Trinity Preparatory School in Winter Park, FL will discuss his experience as a member of the AP World History Test Development Committee and long-time leader of the AP World History Reading where AP World History Free Exam Questions are scored. Jen Foray professor of history at Purdue and former co-chair of the AP European History Test Development Committee, will draw on her knowledge of the course and its development, as chair and discussant. Due to the wide reach of the AP Histories in high schools across the country and globe, this offers a rich opportunity for attendees to see the skills being taught to their students in history classrooms before they matriculate into higher education. In addition, many college faculty may be surprised to see the extent to which today’s exams are not, to turn a phrase, the AP test of their students’ grandparents.
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