Clinical trial NCT04728022: Brain Research Apprenticeships in New York at Columbia
Official title: Brain Research Apprenticeships in New York at Columbia (BRAINYAC)
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Educational Activities
Lead sponsor: Columbia University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
First posted: 2021-01-28
Enrollment: 17
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 15
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Intervention model description: All students in the study will be in the same group, as it is a pre-post measurement based on a summer mentored high school program. Findings will be supplemented with focus groups and interviews.
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief summary: 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.

Detailed description: This study will utilize a mixed methodological approach integrating quantitative and qualitative data elements. It will employ a one-group, pretest-posttest research design, in order to allow us to determine the effect of participation in the BRAINYAC program (i.e., the intervention) on participating students' STEM development (i.e., efficacy and identity). The study will also include retrospective individual and focus group interviews in order to obtain a fuller understanding of the concepts under study (e.g., scientific identity, readiness to pursue science, etc.) from the students' point of reference. To the extent possible, the study will incorporate a longitudinal analysis in order to examine how program participation affects students' academic and career decisions in their final high school and postsecondary years through retrospective surveys of alumni participants. In addition to assessing program impact, the research design will include an evaluation component to examine program implementation. Through an examination of program documentation (e.g., student attendance, descriptions of activities) and retrospective surveys of participants (i.e., students and mentors) this component will determine the extent to which the program was implemented as proposed. It will provide valuable information connecting program elements to observed outcomes and can be used to make modifications to the research and/or program designs, as needed.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* All students and mentors in the program will be invited to enroll

Exclusion Criteria:

* None

Primary outcomes:
measure: Self-report of scientific effectiveness
timeFrame: 8 months
measure: Self-report of scientific identity
timeFrame: 8 months
measure: Likelihood of studying science in college or going on to a science career
timeFrame: 4 years
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: New York
country: United States
facility: Zuckerman Institute, Columbia University
state: New York
Study officials:
affiliation: Columbia University
name: Daphna Shohamy, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: