REU Site: Psychology Research Experience Program

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program and is also supported by SBE's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). It has both scientific and societal benefits, and integrates research and education. The explicit motivation for this REU program is to address the well-documented achievement gap whereby members of underrepresented populations, racial and ethnic minorities, low-income, and first-generation college students: (1) apply to PhD programs in psychology and neuroscience and (2) successfully complete their doctoral training, in proportions far lower than their representation in the overall population. The Psychology Research Experience Program (PREP) at the Department of Psychology of the University of Wisconsin, Madison provides intensive mentoring and experience in scientific research and in professional development to undergraduates who have expressed and demonstrated an interest in a career in scientific psychology. The intellectual focus for PREP is integrating principles and methods of data science into the study of psychology and neuroscience. This focus reflects in all branches of science relating to behavior, including data mining and meta analysis, large-scale collection of data, and the increasing appreciation that individual data sets can constitute, "big data" which methods from machine learning and other branches of engineering can be applied. PREP's combination of a mentored research experience, training in the tools of data science, and professional development and networking, is designed to equip its participating students with the skills that are necessary for a successful career in STEM. Thus, it will broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in STEM-related careers. PREP features a balance of mentored laboratory research and a curriculum of scientific instruction, professional development, and networking opportunities. Each PREP student is paired with a professor whose research falls into one or more of these domains of psychology research: Biological, Clinical, Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental, and Social. Tiered mentorship includes graduate student or postdoctoral fellow from the host lab, as well as by a graduate student in the Department of Computer Science or the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. These PREP research mentors, themselves, participate in a weekly mentor training workshop. In addition to its primary goal of broadening participation in STEM-related careers, PREP contributes quantitative and qualitative survey research to the Student Assessment of their Learning Gains (SALG) instrument to improve teaching and mentoring in the STEM disciplines. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.