Title: Examination based acceleration mechanisms and student outcomes
Description: Acceleration mechanisms are programs that aim to provide high school students with challenging material and potentially allow them to start accruing college credits. They exist mainly in two forms: examination-based programs, such as the College Board's Advanced Placement (AP) Program, and the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program; and college-based programs (often called dual enrollment), which include national programs such as Tech Prep, Early College High Schools, and Middle College High Schools. In this dissertation, I present three papers that focus primarily on examination-based acceleration mechanisms. The first paper, a critical literature review, examines the impact of acceleration mechanisms on student outcomes and situates the context for the remaining papers. I focus primarily on the outcomes for students who participate in examination-based programs but also provide details on the research on students who participate in college-based programs for contrast. I discover that much of the existing research on the impact of acceleration mechanisms on student outcomes has somewhat tenuous results and draws incomplete conclusions. Most notably, more research is needed that provides causal estimates of their impact on student outcomes, in addition to investigation on how the different programs may potentially work together.

The second paper investigates student attrition from the IB program. It is an empirical paper in which I employ discrete-time survival analysis to determine the point at which students are at greatest risk of non-promotional exit from the program. I find that the risk for non-promotional exit is greatest in the pre-IB years (grades nine and ten), and that students from underrepresented backgrounds are typically at greater risk for non-promotional exit in comparison to White students, even after controlling for socioeconomic status. In the third paper, I estimate the causal impact of the introduction of an IB program in a school district on students' participation in AP courses, using a difference-in-differences methodology combined with logistic and Poisson regression analysis. I find that the probability of taking an AP courses decreases once an IB program is introduced, but that the impact of the introduction of an IB program on the number of AP courses taken differs by student background.
Subjects: International baccalaureate, Advanced placement programs (Education), Academic achievement
Places: United States