Pathways to Biomedical Careers: Enhancing the High School Experience

描述(由申请者提供)：本研究项目旨在扩展和评估大学雄心计划(CAP，www.collegeambiton.org)，这是一个完整的学校设计，为低收入和少数族裔学生提供资源和支持，让他们上大学，并在科学、技术、工程和数学领域追求职业生涯，包括生物医学。CAP是基于15年来对1000多名青少年从中学到成年的实证研究，为期四年的随机临床试验，以及对现有大学入学决定因素的文献回顾。CAP正在四所治疗高中(两所城市和两所农村)和四所匹配的对照学校实施，未来的干预措施将包括16所治疗学校和16所对照学校，目标是10,000多名高中生。在种族和民族、社会经济地位和类似地理区域的衡量标准上，所有学校的大学入学率都低于州平均水平，也低于其他学生人数相似的学校。CAP可以最好地描述为前测、后测、准实验、对照组设计。这项研究的主要目标是评估CAP对两年制和四年制院校学生大专出勤率的影响，并考察CAP对学生(1)大专教育选择(基于Barron的院校选择指数)和(2)在大学追求生物医学职业的影响。 与公共卫生相关：先前的研究表明，生物医学科学中历史上处于不利地位的少数群体的代表性不足，损害了相同社区接受的医疗保健的质量，这不仅不公平，而且非常有问题，因为这些群体代表着美国增长最快的人口群体。大学雄心计划(CAP)旨在为学生提供有关STEM和生物医学职业的信息，并加强他们在这些领域的大专后职业机会。本研究旨在探讨CAP在鼓励更多低收入和少数族裔学生进入STEM和生物医学专业并从事这些职业方面的可行性。

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.