NIMH COR HONORS HIGH SCHOOL RESEARCH EDUCATION GRANT

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DESCRIPTION (Adapted from Applicant's Abstract): The JSU NIMH-COR Honors High School Research Education Program seeks to provide special research training experiences to talented minority high school students, interested in pursuing an undergraduate education in Psychology, Biology or Chemistry, who are underrepresented in the behavioral and bio-medical research arena. The mission of this program is to stimulate interest and motivation among high school students from racial/ethnic minority groups to make a career choice in science disciplines related to mental health. Four high school students with a GPA of 3.0 or higher (4.0 scale) will be selected from area high schools to participate in a hands-on research experience under the supervision of an experienced research mentor. Students will be active in the program during their junior and senior years. Year-round research training activities will be made available to the trainees; however, during the summer, for a period of 10 weeks, the trainees will work full time in one of the research laboratories in psychology, biology or chemistry at JSU. The students will gain experience in research design, instrumentation, data collection, data analysis, research report writing, and preparing a poster and/or slide presentation for a professional meeting. During monthly seminars and 2-3 supervisory sessions per month during the school term, trainees will be given instructions and assignments by their mentors and/or the Program Director. These sessions will focus on numerous research skills, including how to conduct a literature review, how to summarize research articles, how to use word-processing and statistical software, how to formulate a research question, etc. The high school will participate in the Guest Lecture Series, the NIMH-COR weekly seminar (once a month) and the JSU NIMH-COR Research Colloquium, all of which are well-established experiences for the NIMH-COR Honors Undergraduate Research trainees. The Undergraduate research trainees will serve as quasi-mentors to the high schoolers and will demonstrate in seminar some of the skills acquired as research trainees. Personal and career counseling will also be available. Letters of support have been secured from area high school principals. Students will be evaluated in terms of completion of the high school degree, acceptances to undergraduate programs related to mental health, scholarships, presentations at science fairs or research forums, awards, etc. The Undergraduate training program is in its 14th year at JSU and has been implemented successfully. Initiation of the NIMH-COR Honors High School Research Education Program at Jackson State University as a component of the NIMH-COR Undergraduate research training program (Jackson, Mississippi) is proposed.