A COMPARISON OF THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIPS AMONG READING, LISTENING, WRITING, AND SPEAKING COMPONENTS OF THE AP FRENCH LANGUAGE EXAMINATION FOR AP CANDIDATES AND COLLEGE STUDENTS 1 , 2

Yearly the Advanced Placement Program administers an examination to high school students measuring French language skills that students might acquire after six semesters of college French Language courses. The dimensional structure of the 1987 AP French Language exam was tested in four populations using a series of confirmatory linear factor analysis models. In order to mitigate problems associated with the linear factor analysis of multiple‐choice items, the linear factor analysis of item parcel scores, made up of small mutually exclusive collections of items hypothesized to measure the same underlying dimension, was utilized. Six confirmatory factor analysis models were tested within each of five samples of data. Two samples contained high school AP candidates with no out‐of‐school French Language experience. A third sample contained AP candiates which had spent a significant amount of time in a French speaking counry. A fourth sample contained AP candidates who regularly spoke or heard French at home. The final sample contained students with no out‐of‐class French language experience enrolled in third year French classes at one of sixteen colleges. In all samples the exam appears to measure four major dimensions which are associated with the language skills of listening, reading, writing and speaking. For the student groups lacking out‐of‐school French language experience, the structure of the exam displays invariance of factor loadings and errors of measurement. Factor structures were most similar for groups with similar out‐of‐school French language experiences.