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|  | A Unique Collaboration
One of the things that makes the Advanced Placement Program unique is its establishment of and reliance on Development Committees. These committees are essential to the preparation of Course Descriptions and exams. The College Board® has found that a committee of highly qualified secondary school and college teachers can best determine the content of an AP course, and can design an exam that will be appropriate for assessing the achievement of students who have taken the AP course.
Most Development Committees have six or seven members, representing a variety of types of secondary schools and colleges from all regions of the country. They also represent a diversity of knowledge and points of view in their fields. Committee members bring to their tasks knowledge of the curricula and instructional methods in their fields. As faculty members, they know the abilities and skills that are critical to mastery in a given subject, and how students can demonstrate them. Because of this, AP Development Committees are the authority when it comes to making subject-matter decisions in the exam-construction process.
Developing the Exam
What do committee members do?
How are members selected?
What do they do?
How often are appointments made?
Who's Who
What do committee members do?
Committee members work closely with ETS's content experts in planning, developing, and approving each AP Exam. Their responsibilities are:
- To help decide the general content of the exam, and the ability level that is being tested.
- To help write and review exam questions, as well as material about the exams that is distributed to candidates, schools, and colleges.
- To give final approval for the exams.
How are members selected?
Potential committee members are nominated by people at professional organizations in the related field, and also by staff at the College Board Regional Offices. These regional staff members are in close contact with secondary schools and higher education institutions.
Secondary school teachers who are nominated must be currently teaching the AP course in the subject for which the committee is responsible. College teachers must either be teaching a course similar to that for which AP candidates are seeking credit or advanced placement, or its sequent course in the field. All college members must be familiar with the introductory college courses for students in their fields. Potential committee members must be well informed about recent trends in curriculum and instructional methods, and they should be skilled in working in small groups and willing to argue their judgments and perceptions with their colleagues on the committee.
Another criterion for the selection of members is representative diversity. Each Development Committee includes members of racial and ethnic minorities and a roughly equal number of men and women. In addition, members are drawn from varied institutions -- secondary schools and colleges, both public and private. The size of the committee member's institution, its geographical location, and its membership in the College Board are other factors taken into consideration.
What do they do?
- All members:
- Attend several committee meetings each year.
- Establish and review content and ability specifications for the exams, and determine the type of questions to be used.
- Write multiple-choice questions.
- Write free-response questions and provide answers or preliminary grading guidelines.
- Review, evaluate, and comment on all questions (free-response and multiple-choice) written for the exams.
- Review exams in draft form.
- Proof and review final forms of the exams.
- Review and assist in writing descriptive materials for AP candidates, schools, and colleges.
- Usually participate in the grading of the free-response questions.
- Plan and develop new forms of the exams using information provided by ETS's statisticians, the Chief Reader, and feedback from candidates and teachers.
- Some members:
- Participate in presentations at AP teacher conferences and regional or national meetings of professional associations. They may also help prepare AP-related articles for professional journals.
- Assess curriculum developments and their implications for the testing program. If necessary, they make recommendations for changes in the AP Program.
- Make suggestions for research studies, validity studies, and surveys that could help the committee work more effectively and lead to improvements in the AP Program.
How often are appointments made?
Continuity of membership provides stability and ensures that experienced members are present throughout the development cycle of a particular form (yearly edition) of an exam. At the same time, there is a need to include new ideas and perspectives. Therefore, committee members typically serve three or four years, and changes in the membership occur annually with the rotation from the Committee of one or two experienced members and the appointment of new members. The Chair, who is chosen from among experienced committee members, usually serves an additional two to four years in that role.
Who's Who
A listing of the members of each course's Development Committee is available below.
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