Understanding Interventions That Encourage Minorities to Pursue Research Careers

Download or read book Understanding Interventions That Encourage Minorities to Pursue Research Careers written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2007-11-12 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minority groups are severely underrepresented in the scientific workforce. To encourage minorities to pursue careers in research, a variety of "intervention programs" have been created at the pre-college, college, and graduate school levels. While there is a belief that these programs often achieve their goals, there is relatively little understanding of the factors that contribute to that success. The Division of Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE) at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health has established a grant program to support research to better understand the factors that contribute to the success of intervention programs. The MORE Division asked the National Academies to organize a workshop focusing on issues addressed by the grant program. This workshop summary presents examples of previous research on intervention programs, describes ways to formulate effective research questions and conduct research to identify the key elements that lead to successful intervention programs, and outlines ways to foster a community of researchers in this area.