Project Profile

This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) Program. Bioscience fields are changing to keep pace with rapid advances in technologies and scientific innovations. These fields need diverse, prepared personnel who can meet workforce demands using cutting-edge technologies and a deep knowledge of science. This project meets this need by preparing underrepresented high school students for the bioscience workforce through innovative internship experiences. This project will pair eleventh- and twelfth-grade students with dedicated mentors from bioscience industries during paid summer internships. Students will also participate in a workforce preparation class, with an emphasis on biotechnology industries, as part of their high school coursework. The project will study the perspectives and practices of different stakeholders, including the high school biotechnology teachers, students, and industry mentors. The analysis of several types of data will result in an empirically-based, comprehensive framework that outlines the elements of impactful internships in bioscience industries. Findings will be widely disseminated to researchers and practitioners, resulting in new approaches for broadening participation in the bioscience workforce. 

Building from 25 years of providing internships for high school students in biotechnology industries, Biotech Partners will iteratively study and improve its internship intervention, resulting in an empirically-based framework that outlines the features of successful internships in bioscience industries. The project will seek to answer the following research question: In what roles and in what ways do business and industry workforce members motivate students from diverse underrepresented populations to become aware of, interested in, and prepare for biotechnology careers, and support teachers in efforts to promote biotechnology workforce awareness and interest? The internship intervention will serve over 300 high school students, 85% of whom identify as youth of color. The internship intervention includes a high school class focused on workforce preparation in biotechnology industries, after-school tutoring, and paid summer internships with biotechnology firms. Research participants include approximately 300 high school students; industry representatives from 15 bioscience industries; six program staff members who facilitate the internships; and four high school teachers. Using constant comparative analytic techniques, the research team will qualitatively analyze transcripts from interviews and focus groups with a purposefully-selected subset of each group of research participants. Using repeated measures analyses of variance, the research team will quantitatively analyze surveys given to students and mentors. This project will advance knowledge about the features of internships that foster workforce preparedness among underrepresented high school students in the biosciences. This project will result in a comprehensive framework for impactful internships that will be widely disseminated to relevant stakeholders. This framework will be designed to broaden participation in the biotechnology workforce.

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.