Misra Shalini, Harvey Richard H, Stokols Daniel, Pine Kathleen H, Fuqua Juliana, Shokair Said M, Whiteley John M
School of Social Ecology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California 92697 , USA.
Am J Prev Med. 2009 Apr;36(4):358-65. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2008.11.014. Epub 2009 Feb 6.
The University of California at Irvine Interdisciplinary Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (ID-SURE) program had three objectives: (1) designing an interdisciplinary health promotion training curriculum for undergraduate research fellows; (2) developing measures for evaluating and assessing program-related educational processes and products; and (3) comparing these educational process and product measures between groups of students who did or did not receive the training.
A total of 101 students participated in the ID-SURE program during 2005, 2006, and 2007. A longitudinal research design was employed whereby students' interdisciplinary attitudes and behaviors were assessed at the beginning and end of the training program. The interdisciplinary and intellectual qualities of students' academic and research products were assessed at the conclusion of the training activities. In addition, ID-SURE participants' interdisciplinary attitudes, behaviors, and research products were compared to those of 70 participants in another fellowship program that did not have an interdisciplinary training component.
Exposing undergraduate research fellows to the interdisciplinary curriculum led to increased participation in, and positive attitudes about, interdisciplinary classroom and laboratory activities. Products, such as the integrative and interdisciplinary quality of student research projects, showed no differences when compared to those of undergraduates who were not exposed to the interdisciplinary curriculum. However, undergraduates exposed to the training engaged in more interdisciplinary behaviors at the end of the program than students who were not trained in interdisciplinary research techniques.
The findings from this study offer evidence for the efficacy of the ID-SURE program for training undergraduate students in transdisciplinary concepts, methods, and skills that are needed for effective scientific collaboration. Additionally, this study makes two important contributions to the development and evaluation of interdisciplinary health research training programs: (1) It presents and evaluates a novel curriculum for training undergraduate students in interdisciplinary theories, concepts, and methods of health promotion that can be replicated in other settings and contexts; (2) It provides and tests the reliability of new measures for evaluating interdisciplinary collaborative processes and develops objective criteria for rating the integrative and intellectual quality of students' research products.
加州大学欧文分校跨学科暑期本科研究体验（ID-SURE）项目有三个目标：（1）为本科研究员设计一门跨学科健康促进培训课程；（2）制定评估和评价与项目相关的教育过程及成果的措施；（3）比较接受或未接受培训的学生群体之间的这些教育过程及成果措施。
2005年、2006年和2007年共有101名学生参加了ID-SURE项目。采用纵向研究设计，在培训项目开始和结束时评估学生的跨学科态度和行为。在培训活动结束时评估学生学术和研究成果的跨学科及智力品质。此外，将ID-SURE参与者的跨学科态度、行为和研究成果与另一个没有跨学科培训内容的奖学金项目的70名参与者的进行比较。
让本科研究员接触跨学科课程导致他们更多地参与跨学科课堂和实验室活动，并对其持积极态度。与未接触跨学科课程的本科生相比，学生研究项目的综合和跨学科质量等成果没有差异。然而，接受培训的本科生在项目结束时比未接受跨学科研究技术培训的学生表现出更多的跨学科行为。
本研究结果为ID-SURE项目在培养本科生有效开展科学合作所需的跨学科概念、方法和技能方面的有效性提供了证据。此外，本研究对跨学科健康研究培训项目的开发和评估做出了两项重要贡献：（1）提出并评估了一门用于培训本科生健康促进跨学科理论、概念和方法的新颖课程，该课程可在其他环境和背景下复制；（2）提供并测试了评估跨学科合作过程的新措施的可靠性，并制定了对学生研究成果综合和智力品质进行评级的客观标准。
