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Methodology Project

The Behavioral Sciences Research Methodology Project

(INTEL BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES TALENT SEARCH)
For More Information, contact the Program Director at (718) 368-5170

The Behavioral Sciences Research Methodology Project, formerly known as the Westinghouse Scholarship Competition, was initiated by President Leon M. Goldstein in the spring of 1992 as a collaborative effort between Kingsborough Community College and the Brooklyn High Schools Superintendency. President Goldstein regarded this program as another part of Kingsborough's continuing effort to establish innovative collaborative programs that promote the mission of Kingsborough as a college for the community.

Each year, this competitive program targets 35 high school students who have the desire and time to commit to studying college-level research methodology and developing independent research projects for submission to the Intel Behavioral and Social Sciences Talent Search Competition. Students seeking this challenge must have an overall academic high school average of 85 or better, with grades of 85 or higher in sequential math and science. In addition, they are interviewed by two full-time professors from Kingsborough's Department of Behavioral Sciences and Human Services. The students they select to be part of the program take two tuition-free, four-credit courses in research methodology during their upper junior and lower senior high school years - BEH 70: Introduction to Research, and BEH 71: Conducting Research. The courses are offered at Kingsborough on Thursdays from 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. They prepare students to conceptualize, plan, develop and conduct an original research project in the behavioral sciences. The participants learn to construct survey instruments and collect and analyze data. The students have the use of Kingsborough's library facilities, including its computer labs. They also have the additional support of an advisor at the high school who works with them in an ongoing mentor relationship and a writing mentor at the college who helps them hone their research-writing techniques.

Since its inception, the program has had several semi-finalists. More importantly, it has afforded hundreds of students the opportunity to gain greater insight and technique in research involved in the disciplines of sociology and psychology than they otherwise would have at this point in their educational careers.

Until 2003, this program was reserved for high school students in the Brooklyn High School Superintendency and served the following schools: Brooklyn Studio, Canarsie, Edward R. Murrow, Erasmus, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Wingate, James Madison, John Dewey, Leon M. Goldstein, Midwood, New Utrecht, Prospect Heights, Sheepshead Bay, South Shore and William H. Maxwell. With the redesign of the Department of Education into regions, the program has been expanded to several other Kingsborough College Now high schools including Lafayette and Fort Hamilton.

DOC:BEHDescription Website Revised 3/29/05