I finally had a chance to process the data that the College Board sent me from 2021. I will do a fuller blog on the results later, but wanted to release the files with the breakdown by race and gender.
In 2021 113,443 people took the AP CSP exam and 67, 632 took AP CSA. That was a drop for AP CSP from 2020 when 114,188 people took that exam and a small increase for AP CSA from 65,000.
The data broken down by race and gender and state for 2021 is at:
There was an error in the following two documents before. I fixed them. The College Board removed the Other category in 2021 and added a No Response (NR). To keep the columns the same I put the NR in the Other column.
Only 10 states had 20 or more Black women take AP CSA in 2020. The top ten were New York (80), Maryland (76), Georgia (65), Texas (63), Virginia (54), New Jersey (48), Florida (46), California (45), Illinois (35), and Massachusetts (34). Twelve states had no black females take AP CSA and 29 had less than 5.
While New York had the most Black women taking AP CSA, they were fourth in the number passing the exam. The top ten states were Maryland (35), Texas (33), New Jersey (26), New York (26), Virginia (22), California (19), Georgia (18), Florida (13), Massachusetts (13), and Ohio (11).
The top ten states for the number of Hispanic/Latinx Females taking AP CSA in 2020 were California (444), Texas (329), New York (158), Florida (150), New Jersey (129), Illinois (101), Virginia (48), Georgia (45), Washington (42), and Arizona (36). Eight states had no Hispanic/Latinx females take AP CSA. Twenty-nine states had less than 10 Hispanic/Latinx females take AP CSA.
The top ten states for the number of Hispanic/Latinx females passing the AP CSA exam were: California (166), Texas (149), Florida (77), New Jersey (73), New York (59), Illinois (41), Virginia (25), Georgia (24), Washington (24), and Pennsylvania (17).
The states that had Native American (American Indian/Alaska Native) females taking AP CSA in 2020 were: Florida (6), California (4), New Jersey (4), Georgia (3), Texas (3), Arizona (2), New York (2), Virginia (2), Washington (2), New Mexico (1), Ohio (1), and Pennsylvania (1). The College Board will not report the data when there are less than 5 in a category so we only have the number who passed for Florida where 2/6 passed.
The top ten states for the number of Black females taking the AP CSP exam were: New York (585), Florida (406), Maryland (283), Georgia (211), California (202), North Carolina (178), Alabama (174), Illinois (137), Tennessee (124), and Massachusetts (116). Eight states had 0 Black females take AP CSP. Twenty-seven states had less than 20 Black females take AP CSP.
The top ten states for the number of Black females who passed the AP CSP exam are: New York (351), Florida (200), Maryland (187), Georgia (143), California (121), Alabama (93), North Carolina (87), Illinois (82), Massachusetts (73), and Texas (67). Sixteen states had no Black female pass the exam and 25 states had less than 10.
The top ten states for the number of Hispanic/Latinx females who took the AP CSP exam are: California (2,113), Florida (1,262), New York (957), Texas (925), Illinois (452), Nevada (217), New Jersey (210), Maryland (174), and North Carolina (141), and Georgia (123). One state, North Dakota, had no Hispanic/Latinx females take the AP CSP exam. Sixteen states had less than 10 take the exam.
The top ten states for the number of Hispanic/Latinx females who passed the AP CSP exam in 2020 were: California (1,392), Florida (871), New York (582), Texas (551), Illinois (323), New Jersey (148), Maryland (127), Nevada (110), Georgia (87), and North Carolina (77). Nine states had no Hispanic/Latinx females pass AP CSP and 18 states had less than 10 take the exam.
The top ten states that had Native American (American Indian/Alaska Native) females take AP CSP were: California (26), Florida (24), New York (21), Maryland (11), Texas (9), Tennessee (6), Alabama (5), Arkansas (5), New Jersey (5), and North Carolina (5). Nineteen states had no Native American females take AP CSP. Forty states had less than 5 take the AP CSP exam.
The College Board will not report the data when there are less than 5 in a category so we only have the number who passed for: California (22), Florida (18), New York (13), Maryland (7), Texas (6), Alabama (5), North Carolina (5), Tennessee (5), New Jersey (4), Arkansas (1), and South Carolina (1).
The state data for 2020 is finally out at https://research.collegeboard.org/programs/ap/data/participation/ap-2020. I downloaded all the state and national data and wrote Python code to aggregate the data for AP CSA and CSP. In 2020 there were 65,000 AP CSA exams and 114,188 AP CSP exams.
While this is good growth for AP CSP and a slight increase for AP CSA, we still have a long way to go to match the number of exams taken in other subjects such as English Lang and Comp and US History. See the data for all the AP exams for 2020 at https://www.dropbox.com/s/nujojbdnuotbxf3/national-data-2020.xlsx?dl=0
While the number of women taking AP CS has increased, AP CSA is still the second worst AP exam in terms of the Log(Female/Male) and AP CSP is still the fifth worst. All exams to the left of zero have more males than females and all the exams to the right of zero have more females than males. The size of the circle is the number of exams. Most AP exams have more females than males taking them.
Pass rates still differ quite a bit by race on AP exams in 2020. Black students have the lowest pass rate on many exams.
****************************************************************************************** *** 15th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education *** WIPSCE 2020 *** CALL FOR PAPERS ****************************************************************************************** *** In a nutshell: WIPSCE 2020, October 28-30, 2020, Essen/Germany *** – Abstract submission deadline: May 4th, 2020 *** – Re-submission deadline: May 10th, 2020 *** – Deadline for Poster/demo abstracts: June 28th, 2020 *** – Full information: http://www.wipsce.org ******************************************************************************************
On behalf of the WiPSCE Program Committee, we invite contributions to the 15th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education (WiPSCE 2020) to be held October 28th to 30th in Essen, Germany.
Research in primary and secondary computing education is a young field with strong ties to national educational systems. Nevertheless, its theories, methods, and results are internationally applicable and of interest to researchers and practitioners in the field. WiPSCE aims at improving the exchange of research and practice relevant to teaching and learning in primary and secondary computing education, teacher training, and related research.
WiPSCE has its roots in a long-running workshop of the German computing education community and is run in cooperation with ACM SIGCSE.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to research on: – Learning & Teaching: student motivation and engagement, attitudes and beliefs, misconceptions and learning difficulties, educational approaches, methods, technologies and tools – Foundations of CSEd: competence modeling and measurement, assessment, curricula and standards, emerging topics for computing education, contests – Teacher education & Institutional aspects: pck in computing, establishing and enhancing computing education, (continued) professional development, communities of practice
IMPORTANT DATES
Submission deadline (full/short papers): May 4th 2020. (*) Re-submission deadline (full/short papers): May 10th 2020. Notification of acceptance (full/short papers): June 15th 2020
Submission deadline (demo/poster abstracts): June 28th 2020. Notification of acceptance (demo/poster abstracts): July 13th 2020
(*): We offer a re-submission slack. This means that title and abstract of papers must be submitted by the first deadline, but it will be possible to upload the full versions of papers until the second deadline.
Accepted papers will be published in the WiPSCE 2020 proceedings as part of the ACM International Conference Proceedings Series. The proceedings will be included in the ACM Digital Library.
WHY ESSEN?
Essen (German pronunciation: [ˈɛsn̩]) is the central and second largest city of the Ruhr area, the largest urban area in Germany. With a population of around 600,000 it is also the ninth largest city of Germany. In the last century, Essen was one of Germany’s most important coal and steel centers. The most notable witness of that time is the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex, which has been inscribed in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2001. Besides that, Essen has been recocgnized for its extensive recreational green areas (almost 10% of the city area), which made it the third-greenest city in Germany. Essen also won the title of European Green Capital in 2017. Essen is a very lively city with numerous cultural offers of all kinds and with plenty of interesting places to visit in and around the city. Further information about Essen can be found on the Visit Essen portal (https://www.visitessen.de/startseite_14/Startseite.en.html).
FURTHER INFORMATION
More information (including submission guidelines) can be found at the conference’s web page: http://www.wipsce.org
There was a modest increase in AP CSA exams from 2017 to 2019, but the number of AP CSP exams more than doubled. I expect that we will see an increase in the number of AP CSA exams as more students get interested in computing after taking AP CSP, however we need to prepare more AP CSP teachers to teach AP CSA.
Black students had the lowest pass rate of any racial group on both CSP and CSA. The pass rate for Black students was less than half of that for Asian students in 2019. This is true for many AP exams, not just CS.
While the number of women taking AP CS has increased, the percentage of women hasn’t made all that much progress. AP CSA is still the second worst AP exam in terms of the Log(Female/Male) and AP CSP is the fifth worst. The size of the circle is the number of exams. The majority of the exams have a higher percentage of females than males.
While AP CS has been growing, it still isn’t reaching as many students as other exams. English Language and Composition is 6x the size of CSP.
A better measure than the total number of exams per state is the number of exams per 100,000 of population (according to the 2010 census). The image below includes the top ten states.
There is quite a variance in the percentage of exam takers that are female in each state. With a high of 29.9% in Vermont and a low of 0% in South Dakota (0 females out of 3 exam takers) for AP CSA.
For AP CSP the high was Washington D. C. with 53.1% and the low was Kansas with 16.83%.
There is also quite a variance in the percentage of females who pass the exam. For AP CSA it ranged from 85.7 in Nebraska (18 out of 21 females passed the exam) to 0% (since no females took the exam in South Dakota). Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota have 0% on the map because the college board won’t publish the results for a group if less than 5 people in that group took the exam. In Montana two females took the AP CSA exam, in Wyoming it was one, in North Dakota it was four. South Dakota had 0 females take the AP CSA exam in 2019.
For AP CSP it ranged from 100% in South Dakota (6 out of 6) to 38.5% for the District of Columbia.
Here is the percentage of AP CSA exam takers that were Black for 2019.
Here is the percentage of AP CSP exam takers that were Black for 2019.
Here is the percent of AP CSA exam takers that were Hispanic by state for 2019.
Here is the percent of AP CSP exam takers that were Hispanic by state for 2019.
I have downloaded the data and written Python programs to process it along with data from prior years. See the following spreadsheets for more information.
The number of AP CSA exams taken in the U.S. increased from 60,040 in 2018 to 64,197 in 2019 (a 7% increase). The number of AP CSP exams taken in the U.S. increased from 70,864 in 2018 to 94,360 in 2019 (a 33% increase).
The percentage of females taking the AP CSA exam increased from 24% in 2018 to 24.5% in 2019. However, this is still the second worse percentage of females in AP after Physics C:elec. & magnet which is 24.3%. The percentage of females taking the AP CSP exam increased from 31.5% in 2018 to 32.7% in 2019. This is still the 5th worst percentage of females. Most (26 of 38 – 68%) of the AP exams have a higher percentage of females than males taking the exam.
The average pass rate on CSA for 2019 was 69.2% and for CSP it was 71.7%. These pass rates are better than Calculus AB which was 57.8%. However, the pass rate for Black students on CSA was 37.1% and CSP was 41.9%. The Hispanic pass rate was 46.9% for CSA and 54.4% for CSP. The Female pass rate for CSA was 66.8% and for CSP was 69.4%.
The top 10 states with the highest number of exams per 100,000 of population are:
Where are AP CSA and CSP courses offered? The interactive map below shows the locations of schools that passed the College Board Audit to offer AP CS courses in 2018-2019 in four states: California, Georgia, Michigan and Texas. Data for other states are under preparation.
This map is visualized by Willa Hua, a data visualization enthusiast. It is meant to supplement the data and report from Barbara Ericson, assistant professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan who has been working with AP CS data since 2004.
In 2018, more women took Advanced Placement (AP) exams than men, as the comparative
pie charts below show. However, when it comes to AP Computer Science (CS) exams, more
specifically, AP Computer Science A (CSA) and AP Computer Science Principles (CSP), only
28% of all exam takers are female, and the percentage of female among those who passed
the exam is even lower.
2018 Gender Distribution of Exam Takers and Exam Passers
If we take a closer look at the statistics, we’d find that for the first time, AP CSA is not the most
male-skewed of all of the AP exams. Nonetheless, AP CSA is the 2nd most male-skewed as
shown in the 2017 v.s. 2018 comparison below. The further away from the center, the more
gender-skewed is the AP exam subject. AP CSP, which is a newer exam piloted in 2016 and
released in 2017, ranks the 5th most male-skewed exam. Both exams made significant
process towards a balanced pool of exam takers in 2018.
2018 Log base 2 of # females / # males
Percentage Female Exam Takers
In addition to the growth of the number of exam takers, both the CSA and CSP witnessed a
growth of the percentage of female exam takers. For CSA, as shown below, 23.9% of exam
takers were female: a 0.4% improvement from 2017.
Female Pass Rate
How many of these females passed compared to males? The female pass rate has been
steadily approaching the overall pass rate. In 2018, 65.0% of female exam takers passed the
AP CSA exam, versus the 67.4% pass rate of all exam takers, and 68.5% female passed the
CSP versus the 71.0% overall.
Overall and Female Pass Rate from 2006 to 2018
Percentage Female Exam Takers by State
CSA
The percentage of female exam takers varies from state to state. For AP CSA, the range was
from 0% (no female exam takers in Mississippi and South Dakota) to 37% (Alaska, not
pictured below).
The states with top five most percentage of female exam takers are Alaska (37%), Washington
(27%), New-York (27%), California (27%) and West Virginia (27%).
Percentage of female AP CSA exam takers by state
CSP
The percentage of female exam takers increased slightly for CSP from 30% in 2017 to 31% in
2018. On the state level, however, the percentage of female exam takers varies from 0% (no
female exam takers in Montana) to 40% (New York) and 47% (District of Columbia).
Percentage of female AP CSP exam takers by state
This analysis is visualized and written by Willa Hua, a data visualization enthusiast. It is meant
to supplement the data and report from Barbara Ericson, assistant professor in the School of
Information at the University of Michigan who has been working with AP CS data since 2004.
Racial Composition in the U.S. v.s. in AP and AP CS Exams
Racial representation in AP CS Exams*
Looking at AP CSA and CSP exams as an aggregate, the majority of AP CS exam takers are whites (45.8%) and Asians (27.1%). The graph above shows the racial decomposition of AP exam takers and exam passers in 2018, in comparison with the entire U.S. population. While young Hispanics constituted 22% of all AP exam takers, they were relatively underrepresented in AP CS exams. Blacks were underrepresented in both AP CS exams and AP exams in general. In terms of passing the exam, the pass rates of Asians and whites were consistently higher than that of Hispanics and blacks. Though 6% of all AP exam takers were Native Americans, less than 0.5% of all AP CS exam takers were Native American, and they constituted only a 0.1% of exam passers.
Exam Takers and Pass Rate by State
For all AP exams in 2018, the average pass rate was 58.4%. AP CSA had a pass rate of 67.4% and AP CSP 71.0%. Among the major racial groups, Asians had the highest pass rate and blacks the lowest, as shown in the table of pass rate below.
AP Exam
All
Asian
White
Hispanic
Black
CSP
71%
82%
78%
54%
40%
CSA
67%
76%
69%
46%
37%
Biology
61%
74%
69%
38%
31%
Calculus AB
57%
68%
62%
39%
32%
US History
52%
66%
60%
33%
27%
All APs
58%
71%
64%
44%
31%
Zooming in on the Minorities
As mentioned before, Hispanics and blacks are two major race groups underrepresented in AP CS exams. The interactive map below shows the number of exam takers and the pass rate by state in AP CSA 2018 for four groups respectively: blacks, black females, Hispanics, and Hispanic females.
This analysis is visualized and written by Willa Hua, a data visualization enthusiast. It is meant to supplement the data and report from Barbara Ericson, assistant professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan who has been working with AP CS data since 2004.
*Data for the racial composition for the U.S. population comes from Kaiser Family Foundation estimates based on the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2008-2017. Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race; all other racial/ethnic groups are non-Hispanic.
