Summer Research Institute at the Florida Mental Health Institute

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PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT Building on the experience of successful undergraduate research programs throughout the country including the ten years of implementing REU/SRI undergraduate research programs at the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute (FMHI) within the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences at the University of South Florida, we will implement an intensive Summer Research Institute at FMHI (SRI@FMHI). The SRI@FMHI will provide undergraduates with advanced education and mentoring in substance use disorders (SUDs) research to encourage their trajectory to matriculate to graduate school in behavioral health, and to enhance the pool of researchers in the SUDs area who achieve successful support from NIH/NIDA and other federal and national research institutions. The undergraduate program will consist of four components: (1) intensive research experience, (2) research seminars, (3) professional development seminars, and (4) skill building workshops. The objectives of the SRI@FMHI are as follows: (1) increase student knowledge in the area of SUDs research, research processes, research ethics, and the responsible conduct of research by providing an eleven week multi- disciplinary summer research education program for 60 undergraduate students (cohorts of 12 students for each of five consecutive years during the grant period); (2) increase student proficiency in SUDs research by immersing them in research laboratory and field experiences, and guiding their work on an independent research project conducted in collaboration with faculty mentors; (3) augment the number of undergraduate students who enroll in SUD/behavioral health graduate programs and pursue research careers related to SUDs; and (4) increase the pool of trained junior scientists in the area of SUDs from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds, through targeted recruitment strategies that have been refined in the past ten years of our REU/SRI programs. In order to accomplish these objectives, the SRI@FMHI will build on the experience of successful undergraduate research programs throughout the country including our own REU/SRI programs. The SRI will be based on the principle that the best way for students to learn about research is to be actively engaged with a faculty mentor in conducting research. Reasoning, critical thinking, and research skills improve more when students actively participate in research than when they engage in the passive instruction that characterizes most statistics and research methods courses. Nine primary techniques will be employed to facilitate active learning in the SRI@FMHI program: (1) experiential learning, (2) independent projects with support from a faculty mentor, (3) cooperative learning, (4) student presentations, (5) group projects, (6) peer review, (7) student-selected topics, (8) group discussions, and (9) student-developed activities. Problem-Based Learning (PBL) incorporates many of these techniques, and PBL will be used within the SRI@FMHI to engage student research teams in finding solutions to real world problems.