Winkleby Marilyn A, Ned Judith, Ahn David, Koehler Alana, Fagliano Kathleen, Crump Casey
Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University, Medical School Office Building, 251 Campus Drive, MC 5411, Stanford, California, USA 94305-5411.
Department of Medicine, Stanford University, 211 Quarry Road, Suite 405, MC 5985, Palo Alto, California, USA 94304-1426.
J Sci Educ Technol. 2014 Feb 1;23(1):138-144. doi: 10.1007/s10956-013-9458-4.
Given limited funding for school-based science education, non-school-based programs have been developed at colleges and universities to increase the number of students entering science- and health-related careers and address critical workforce needs. However, few evaluations of such programs have been conducted. We report the design and methods of a controlled trial to evaluate the Stanford Medical Youth Science Program's Summer Residential Program (SRP), a 25-year-old university-based biomedical pipeline program. This 5-year matched cohort study uses an annual survey to assess educational and career outcomes among four cohorts of students who participate in the SRP and a matched comparison group of applicants who were not chosen to participate in the SRP. Matching on sociodemographic and academic background allows control for potential confounding. This design enables the testing of whether the SRP has an independent effect on educational- and career-related outcomes above and beyond the effects of other factors such as gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, and pre-intervention academic preparation. The results will help determine which curriculum components contribute most to successful outcomes and which students benefit most. After 4 years of follow-up, the results demonstrate high response rates from SRP participants and the comparison group with completion rates near 90%, similar response rates by gender and ethnicity, and little attrition with each additional year of follow-up. This design and methods can potentially be replicated to evaluate and improve other biomedical pipeline programs, which are increasingly important for equipping more students for science- and health-related careers.
鉴于学校科学教育资金有限，高校已开展校外项目，以增加进入科学和健康相关职业领域的学生数量，并满足关键劳动力需求。然而，对这类项目的评估却很少。我们报告了一项对照试验的设计和方法，以评估斯坦福医学青年科学项目的暑期住宿项目（SRP），这是一个有25年历史的基于大学的生物医学人才培养项目。这项为期5年的匹配队列研究通过年度调查来评估参与SRP的四组学生以及未被选入SRP的匹配对照组申请人的教育和职业成果。根据社会人口统计学和学术背景进行匹配，可以控制潜在的混杂因素。这种设计能够检验SRP是否对教育和职业相关成果产生独立影响，这种影响超出了性别、种族、社会经济背景和干预前学术准备等其他因素的影响。研究结果将有助于确定哪些课程组成部分对成功成果贡献最大，以及哪些学生受益最多。经过4年的随访，结果显示SRP参与者和对照组的回应率很高，完成率接近90%，按性别和种族划分的回应率相似，且随着随访年份的增加流失率很低。这种设计和方法有可能被复制，以评估和改进其他生物医学人才培养项目，这些项目对于让更多学生为从事科学和健康相关职业做好准备越来越重要。
