EVALUATION OF THE CHANNEL 13/WNDT ADVANCED PLACEMENT EXPERIMENT
Authors: Richards James M. 
Published: August 2014

During the summer of 1963, the Educational Broadcasting Corporation offered over Channel 13/WNDT two college‐level courses, one in American History and one in Calculus. Provisions were made for students, if they so desired, to seek formal credit for the course by applying for and taking an appropriate examination of the Advanced Placement Program. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the learning experience of the TV students, primarily through analysis of their performance on the Advanced Placement Examinations.

A random sample of students residing in the TV viewing area, who had prepared through regular but varied channels and who had taken the Advanced Placement Examinations in the spring of 1963, was drawn as a control group. The performance of these students was compared with that of the telecourse students. In addition, certain background information was obtained by questionnaire from members of these two groups, as well as from a number of the telecourse students who had taken the course in a non‐credit status. A summary of findings is presented below.

1. How effective is the learning experience? In the telecourses, 71% of the History students and 50% of the Calculus students obtained passing grades, but the TV students as a group performed less well than did the control groups who took the regular spring 1963 Advanced Placement Examinations. The general academic performance of the TV students, as measured by high school grades, was also lower. Results of analyses of covariance indicate that the lower examination performance of the TV History group as compared to the regular Advanced Placement group may well be due to generally lower academic ability and performance but that the examination performance of the TV Calculus group is still relatively lower when previous academic performance is controlled.

2. What were the patterns of study and other activities of the telecourse students, and how do these patterns compare with the study patterns of regular Advanced Placement students? The TV students studied somewhat more hours per week than did the Regular AP students, but probably somewhat fewer hours for each hour of class lecture time. Thus there is at least a possibility that the relatively poorer examination performance of the TV students is due to relatively less study of assigned materials. The Regular AP students studied more for other courses, worked less at paying jobs, and spent more time on recreation than did the TV students.

3. What are the reactions of students to the telecourses? The majority of TV students felt that the teacher did an extremely good job, and most of the rest thought he did a fairly good job. In addition, all students were asked if they would be in favor of teaching basic college freshman and sophomore courses by means of educational TV. The majority of the TV students would favor such a policy, while a majority of the Regular AP Group would disapprove. The generally favorable attitudes of the TV students provide some evidence that the overall experience provided by the telecourses was positive.

4. What kinds of students are attracted by the TV courses? The TV students, as compared to regular AP students, tend to be older, are more likely to be female, come from high schools where a relatively smaller proportion of seniors go on to college, and come more often from laboring class and lower‐middle class homes. These results can be summarized as indicated by the fact that the TV students were a more heterogeneous group than the Regular AP students. This is an indication that the telecourses reached their intended audience.

It should be noted that sampling limitations (deriving primarily from differences in origins, characteristics, and incentives of students in the experimental and control groups) make some generalizations to the general population of high school students hazardous. The findings are therefore most appropriately considered as descriptive of the particular samples studied.