Brain Research Apprenticeships in New York at Columbia

Conditions

• Educational Activities

Eligibility Criteria

Sex

ALL

Age

15 Years - N/A

Healthy Volunteers

Accepted

Interventions

• Education program — BEHAVIORAL
  Mentored high school summer research program

Study Details

The objective of the BRAINYAC program is to prepare high school students for, and deliver, the experience of working in a neuroscience research laboratory over a summer. Our program goals are to prepare local students from Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx with the skills necessary to enter a working research laboratory over a period of 8 months, and support them in learning key laboratory skills and communicating them to an audience.Our hypothesis is that students' self-reports of scientific effectiveness and science identity will improve over the course of the 8-month long program. Self-reported efficacy measures predict academic performance in science, so an improvement in these self-report measures may indicate a higher likelihood to succeed in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) studies or careers. Likewise, science identity has a positive impact on a student's likelihood of entering a science career, particularly in populations that are under-represented in science.Over a 4-year period we will track students' self-reports of (1) scientific efficacy, including their level of confidence in scientific writing, oral presentation, library and literature search, conducting research and general academic skills, and (2) science identity. We will adopt a mixed-methods approach combining survey data with focus groups and interviews to present a full picture of these changes. We also propose to track students after they leave the program, to measure whether the changes in scientific self-efficacy translate into STEM studies at the level of higher education or career choices. We will also obtain data from scientific mentors in the program to inform us whether we are adequately supporting them in providing the students with training.

Key Dates

First listed

Jan 28, 2021

Start date

Dec 30, 2020

Status verified

Feb 2026

Primary completion

Aug 31, 2026

Completion

Aug 31, 2026

Study Design

Enrollment

180 participants (estimated)

Allocation

NA

Intervention model

SINGLE_GROUP

Primary purpose

OTHER

Arms

• Experimental: Students
  Education program

Primary Outcome Measure

Self-report of scientific effectiveness [ Time Frame: 8 months ]

Central Contacts

• Daphna L Shohamy, PhD
  212 854 7560
  [email protected]

Locations (1)

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