Pathways to Biomedical Careers: Enhancing the High School Experience

该研究项目旨在扩展和评估大学雄心计划（CAP，www.collegeambiton.org），这是一个整体的学校设计，为低收入和少数民族学生提供资源和支持，让他们能够上大学，从事科学，技术，工程和数学（包括生物医学）的职业。CAP是基于15年的实证研究，跟踪了1,000多名从中学到成年的青少年，一项为期四年的随机临床试验，以及对有关大学入学决定因素的现有文献的回顾。目前正在四所治疗高中（两所城市学校和两所农村学校）和四所匹配的对照学校实施CAP，今后干预措施将包括16所治疗学校和16所对照学校，目标是10 000多名高中生。所有学校的大学入学率低于平均水平时，与国家的平均水平，并与其他学校有类似的学生人口的种族和民族的措施，社会经济地位，并在类似的地理区域。CAP可以被描述为一个前测，后测，准实验，比较组设计。本研究建议的主要目标是评估CAP对学生在两年制和四年制院校的中学后出勤率的有效性，并检查CAP对学生的影响（1）中学后教育选择（基于巴伦的机构选择性指数）和（2）在大学追求生物医学职业。 公共卫生相关性：以前的研究表明，历史上处于不利地位的少数群体在生物医学科学中的代表性不足，破坏了同一社区获得的医疗保健质量，这不仅是不公平的，而且是非常有问题的，因为这些群体代表了美国增长最快的人口群体。大学抱负计划（CAP）旨在为学生提供有关STEM和生物医学职业的信息，并提高他们在这些领域的中学后职业的机会。这项研究探讨了CAP鼓励更多低收入和少数民族学生进入大学STEM和生物医学专业并从事这些职业的可行性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This research project aims to extend and evaluate the College Ambition Program (CAP, www.collegeambiton.org), a whole school design that provides resources and support to low-income and minority students to attend college and pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, including biomedicine. CAP is based on fifteen years of empirical work that followed over 1,000 adolescents from middle school into adulthood, a four-year random clinical trial, and reviews of the extant literature on determinants of college enrollment. CAP is being implemented in four treatment high schools (two urban and two rural) and four matched comparison schools, in the future the intervention will include 16 treatment and 16 control schools targeting over 10,000 high school students. All schools have lower than average college enrollments rates when compared with the state average and with other schools with similar student populations on measures of race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and in similar geographic regions. CAP can best be described as a pretest, posttest, quasi-experimental, comparison-group design. The primary goal of this research proposal is to evaluate the efficacy of CAP on student postsecondary attendance at two-year and four-year institutions and to examine the effects of CAP on students (1) postsecondary educational choices (based on Barron's Index of institutional selectivity) and (2) pursuit of a biomedical career in college. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Previous research has shown that the under-representation of historically disadvantaged minorities in biomedical science undermines the quality of medical care received by the same communities, which is not only inequitable but highly problematic given that these same groups represent the fastest growing demographic groups in the United States. The College Ambition Program (CAP) is designed to provide students with information regarding STEM and biomedical careers and enhance their access to postsecondary careers in these fields. This study examines the viability of CAP for encouraging more low-income and minority students to enter STEM and biomedical majors in college and pursue careers in these occupations.