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Approximately 2 million students take Advanced Placement (AP) examinations annually. However, departmental policies that allow students to replace introductory courses with AP credit greatly vary within and across universities, even across relatively similar universities. This study examines the impact of AP credit policies on second-course success in introductory Biology, Chemistry, and Physics course sequences at six large public research universities (N = 48,230 students). Applying logistic regression analyses, we found that general performance indicators and measures of systemic inequities during high school were predictive of students earning skip-eligible scores. Interestingly, we descriptively discovered wide variation across institutions and disciplines in the percentage of students who chose to skip when meeting their local policies. However, logistic regression analysis did not find general trends of inequalities for skipping courses for students with skip-eligible scores. We then applied inverse-probability weights with regression adjustment to examine the effects of course skipping. We found that students who skipped their first course with AP credit actually performed similarly well or better in subsequent courses than did students who did not skip, even in contexts where lower AP scores were accepted. Therefore, our study suggests administrators to increase coherence in AP credit policies across departments and disciplines. In particular, we encourage modifying AP credit policies and academic advising to encourage students to skip when they have eligible AP scores. Benefits may include reductions in unnecessary coursework that is burdensome for both students and universities, potentially freeing up resources to better support students who were not privileged to enroll in AP courses during their high school education.

Process oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) is a specific type of active learning centered on a learning cycle where students first explore a concept through scientific models, followed by a concept invention, and finally a concept application phase. In spite of POGIL's research-based design and the many studies showing it increases learning outcomes, there is still a critical gap in the knowledge behind the effect of POGIL in attitudinal factors and the mechanisms behind it. The current study seeks to build an understanding of the mechanistic ways in which POGIL works and its effect on students' attitudes and learning. The sample consisted of students who enrolled in General Chemistry I in the Fall semester across 7 sections (classrooms) at an R1 (large research) university in the eastern part of the US. Four sections used POGIL instruction (N = 809) while the other three used Traditional teaching methods (N = 543). Statistical models using multilevel statistics show students in the POGIL condition had higher chemistry identity, competency beliefs, and chemistry grades. Furthermore, performance in General Chemistry I appeared to be a core mediator of all the observed differences in General Chemistry II where students in the POGIL condition still performed better and had higher chemistry-related attitudes.

Women take qualifying exams and enter medical school at substantially lower levels than predicted by their interest in medical degrees at the end of high school. We examined how science course experiences contribute to gendered attrition in premed using a multicohort data set of 8,253 undergraduates taking the traditional premed sequence of introductory science courses at a public research university between 2008 and 2016. Gendered attrition was not based in academic performance, was specific to high-performing women, and yet was grounded in competency beliefs. The result is that high-performing women often graduate with lower paying, lower status degrees. Motivational interventions in premed science courses will be critical for retaining high-performing women in premed, an important outcome with implications for equity and women's health.

The authors examine the effects of undergraduate research experiences on key steps in the path to medical school, considering the case of an undergraduate research experience (URE) offered to first-year students that also might influence performance in large introductory science courses. Using a historical dataset of 15,000 first-year students, logistic and linear regressions were performed to better understand the influence of early UREs on different measures of college success. Immediate effects of an early URE on second-year course performance and very large effects on second-year retention are demonstrated. There also are delayed effects on taking the MCAT and medical school acceptance. Results demonstrate the importance of early UREs and their role in STEM student persistence.

In chemistry, lack of academic preparation and math ability have been offered as explanations as to why women seem to enroll, perform, and graduate at lower levels than men. In this paper, we explore the alternative possibility that the gender gap in chemistry instead originates from differential gender effects of academic factors on students' motivation. Using a sample of approximately 670 students enrolled in a mid-sized university in the United States we conducted: (1) t-tests to understand incoming academic differences between freshman students by gender, (2) regression analysis to determine which academic and attitudinal factors predict success in General Chemistry 1, and (3) a mediation analysis to understand the underlying mechanisms of how academic performance affects students' beliefs about their competency in chemistry, which in turn has an effect on chemistry achievement. We demonstrate the importance of math ability as a contributor to chemistry achievement, but further that ability differences in math are important because they affect students' chemistry competency beliefs. Critically, this link between ability and competency beliefs is stronger for women than men. These results suggest that interventions geared towards improving women's chemistry competency beliefs could have an important influence in improving their achievement in the classroom, and in consequence reduce the gender gap in chemistry