1. IntroductionThe global preeminence of the United States in biomedical sciences as well as technology is contingent on training a large and diverse group of students to comprise the future cadre of competent and innovative scientists [1,2,3]. One of the main pillars to accomplish this strategic aim is to enroll undergraduate students from varied racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds and properly train them in various fields of biomedicine and health sciences from their first years of higher education. In the past few decades, many interventions and training programs have tried to expose undergraduate students to research, particularly in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Although these programs have encouraged students to pursue scientific careers [4], they have been traditionally designed based on an apprenticeship model, where students are involved in research in a limited capacity under the mentorship of a senior scientist [5,6,7].The apprenticeship model of research education comes with certain limitations and disadvantages. The main weakness is limited reach because these programs require a great amount of institutional and faculty resources. Students are often placed in highly technical labs under the supervision of experienced mentors [8]. Students are initially engaged in basic introductory-level assignments for a relatively long time and are gradually prepared to engage in original research. Therefore, as novices, the students are often not able to clearly understand the significance and relevance of their activities to the overall research effort. Furthermore, students who choose to engage in apprenticeship-type research often already have a sense of science identity and high levels of motivation and readiness. Lack of previous exposure to research and lack of science identity can serve as a significant barrier to racial, ethnic, and socioeconomically disadvantaged students’ participation in biomedical research, as they are often still developing a science identity and require encouragement to fully take advantage of research training opportunities. Historically disadvantaged students are often less likely to seek apprenticeship-type research experiences or may be easily bored by less-challenging and repetitive assignments. Lastly, as apprentices, students often need to follow strict standard operating procedures with limited room for creativity, ownership, leadership, and interaction with peers [9]. Many students who are originally attracted to research may gradually lose interest; only a small proportion of them will maintain the drive that is needed to continue with their pursuit of a research career. Those who succeed are mostly from racial, ethnic, and economically privileged backgrounds, often inspired by successful role models and support systems that exist in their social networks, which may not be available to racial, ethnic, and economically disadvantaged students who are traditionally underrepresented in science [1,2,3,10]. Therefore, there is a continued search for relevant evidence-based approaches for optimizing recruitment, education, and training outcomes for students from diverse backgrounds [11,12].Federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), have made significant investments in developing innovative research training programs [12,13]; however, most of these funded programs have followed an apprenticeship model. Incorporation of an entrepreneurial mindset into research training has the potential to overcome the limitations of the traditional apprenticeship training model by allowing students to drive the process more creatively, which can lead to greater peer support and students’ increased ownership of their research. In the real world, leading researchers have an entrepreneurial mindset: they use their creativity to generate novel research ideas, pitch their ideas to secure funding, take ownership of their projects, lead staff and other scientists, and in every step of this venture, they accept the associated risks and responsibilities. Therefore, cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset in research training has the potential to better position undergraduate researchers to answer research questions and motivate them to become highly accomplished, next-generation investigators. ObjectivesHere, we present an educational intervention developed and implemented at Morgan State University (MSU), a Historically Black University in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The overarching goal of the program, titled “A Student-Centered ENtrepreneurship Development training model to increase the diversity of the biomedical research workforce (ASCEND)”, is to foster an entrepreneurial mindset among undergraduate students from racial, ethnic, and economically disadvantaged backgrounds [14]. The ASCEND program is designed according to a central “research entrepreneurship” framework in which engaging undergraduate students in a self-directed entrepreneur-style research training program will foster their sense of autonomy, increase their level of interaction with their peers and mentors, and result in a strong sense of science identity, readiness to lead research and admission into research-oriented graduate programs [14]. While the entrepreneurship concept is typically used in business, it is used in ASCEND at MSU with the ultimate goal of incorporating critical aspects of the entrepreneurial mindset into research training. 4. DiscussionASCEND’s ERTM is a novel student-centered model designed to enhance the quality of undergraduate research training and prepare students from backgrounds that are underrepresented in the biomedical research workforce for a successful and productive research career. ASCEND’s ERTM is designed to systematically help learners enhance their capabilities through peer and faculty support. In this model, students are the main drivers of their own learning experiences scaffolded by peers, instructors, and mentors. This concept was originally defined by Vygotsky in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) theory. Vygotsky defines the Zone of Proximal Development as the distance between the actual versus potential developmental levels of learners with or without scaffolding that comes in stages, which mirror the four stages of the ERTM [29]. More specifically, stages one and two of ASCEND’s ERTM provide a pathway from expert- to self-assistance, while in stages three and four, concepts are internalized, and learners become more independent by going through an iterative process and interacting with the scientific community [30]. In this paper, we compared select psychosocial outcomes from participants in ASCEND’s SRC with a comparison group of non-SRC participants. Our findings show that the model is educationally sound and feasible. The SRC has recruited about 250 undergraduate student members interested in health research from almost every major and classification, which indicates the success of the program in attracting and expanding science training to undergraduate students with various interests.The initial results indicate that the SRC’s programs and activities have been significantly effective in helping students enhance their levels of peer support, science identity, academic self-concept, and science self-efficacy compared to control groups. Several previous studies have shown that students with positive perceptions about themselves as a scientist and their confidence in their ability to excel academically are important predictive factors of their future success [31]. Altermatt [15] wrote that peer support can be a powerful source of inspiration and a predictor of students’ future academic success, mainly through validating good ideas and supporting actions.The stages of the ERTM mimic the real world in at least three ways. First, they may improve students’ metacognition by enhancing awareness of their own passions and thought processes [20]. Second, they provide—with scaffolding—learning that starts with easier levels and gradually advances to more difficult ones. Students often lose interest when their first exposure to research is perceived as being too difficult [21]. Through reflective and project-based learning, students examine their issues of interest and learn as they develop their future research projects [16,32]. In the ERTM, newcomers go through a gradual orientation, starting first by meeting like-minded peers with slightly more experience to create a more pleasant, welcoming, and relaxing the first impression. Qualitative assessment has shown that most students found the SRC space to be like a home with plenty of peers ready to help them. Peer mentoring at the entry level is a powerful strategy to better acquaint research trainees with the environment [19]. After the orientation, the role of near-peer mentors and graduate students becomes more prominent in guiding the students, providing basic training, and facilitating students’ connections to more-senior researchers. This tiered mentoring system has the potential to scaffold students’ reflections leading to higher levels of introspection, self-analysis, and open-mindedness that have been reported to be effective in enhancing the quality of the training and research productivity [33,34]. According to Gilbert and Trudel [18], peers learn how to coach and mentor others, often through reflections in different stages of learning and by engaging with the subject and their peers. Third, ASCEND’s ERTM is based on a student-centered approach where the students are empowered drivers of change; they select their topic and choose their mentors. Student-centered learning is reported to lead to more creativity, self-reliance, and future growth by providing the students with the opportunity to control and guide their own learning process while in training [35]. The combination of the student-centered approach and engagement in the SRC creates ample opportunities for appreciative inquiries between students and with their mentors, which is a strength-based strategy built upon students’ success that has been reported to enhance both students’ scientific competencies and leadership skills [36]. The results indicate that the SRC has served as a natural bridge and gateway to other opportunities by preparing students for more advanced scholarship opportunities, external internship programs, and graduate schools.The entrepreneurial mindset is about having ideas and taking risks in realizing them; such a mindset requires creativity and determination [37]. The Member Incentive Program is designed to incentivize and nurture creativity, research entrepreneurship, and agency, which has been effective in creating a more accountable system and positive pressure for change. In addition, pilot grant programs, even at small dollar amounts, have been quite effective incentives for junior researchers [38,39]. Through the HRCC program, undergraduate students can submit their concepts and proposals for funding as principal investigators. This has been a powerful opportunity and motivation for the students to act like entrepreneurs and work with their peers and faculty mentors to ideate and further develop their own research. Furthermore, the ERTM has the potential to broaden the horizons of young scientists who may mainly consider academic research careers while ignoring other opportunities as independent researchers and entrepreneurs in start-ups, private industries, or foundations.The SRC, as a student club, has been an important venue for finding peer support and practicing leadership to govern the organization. Peers who share similar backgrounds have functioned as role models for discovering what might or might not work in terms of research [40]. Elements of this model could be utilized to foster a culture of research entrepreneurship and maximize the impact of traditional research training approaches by inspiring a better sense of self-confidence and efficacy, improving the understanding of complex subjects, fostering a sense of science identity, increasing creativity, and preparing students for more effective engagement and interaction with their senior mentors. Another set of issues affecting the future of the biomedical workforce concerns the nature of the training young scientists receive and the mismatch between that training and their career prospects. This mismatch might be addressed by providing training in the context of a student organization where members enjoy connecting with their peers regardless of their disciplinary background and take a more active role in their own learning. The ERTM is relevant to all students. However, racial, ethnic, and economically disadvantaged students may especially benefit from the model as they are less likely to have been exposed to ideas, role models, and opportunities compared to their “majority” peers.The ERTM provides a simple, replicable, and feasible model to produce self-directed resilient learners who are unafraid to take risks, engage in real research, and learn from their mistakes. This contrasts with traditional apprenticeship models, which do not scaffold learning or encourage students to own the production of knowledge, where students learn from experts in environments with less opportunity for peer support and autonomy. Furthermore, the SRC fits well within the mission of almost all undergraduate programs to advance learning and leadership. Having an academic peer (student) organization is an important capacity for recruiting more members, raising funds, creating leadership opportunities, and planning needed activities and training. Some potential institutional benefits include but are not limited to enhancing the quality of research training, creating more peer support, enhancing the diversity and retention of undergraduate students in research programs, and increasing the research productivity of the institution. According to Hurtado et al., joining a pre-professional or departmental club during the first year of college significantly increases racial, ethnic, and economically disadvantaged students’ likelihood of staying in their major. They suggest that membership in such organizations may provide students with opportunities to engage with peer groups that share similar interests and professional goals, which can help reinforce their science identity and subsequent professional endeavors [41]. Other studies also have reported on the positive effects of participation in student organizations among Latinos and African Americans [42,43,44]. The upfront costs for creating a student research center are fairly minimal, with great potential for return on investment. Further, the ERTM has the potential to substantially enhance the effectiveness of current undergraduate research programs by more actively involving students in driving the process. Therefore, the SRC’s relatively small cost can be justified, and the program has a reasonable likelihood of being implemented and sustained. Limitations

The educational philosophy of scaffolding behind the stages of the ERTM makes it easier to fit with the mission of most undergraduate colleges and universities with an explicit focus on undergraduate research. So far, this model has been tested within the context of an HBCU since 2016. Therefore, the long-term impact of the program cannot be established yet, and our sample size is relatively small. There is a need for larger sample sizes, longer follow-ups, and testing of the model under varied conditions. Student-focused projects in many elite campuses, such as student theses and capstone projects, are a requirement for graduation. However, some experts have expressed skepticism about the feasibility of such an approach in under-resourced settings and with racial, ethnic, and economically disadvantaged students. This concern is founded mainly on the assumption that racial, ethnic, and economically disadvantaged students may not know enough to formulate their research questions and design their own studies. However, even though the ERTM has not yet been tested in other similar settings, the initial feasibility of the model in the context of an HBCU could be a plausible indication that with scaffolding and tiered mentorship, this approach may be successful with other students who have not had significant research experience. Despite these limitations, the ERTM and the SRC are novel ideas with promising early results, using both qualitative and quantitative data and measuring psychosocial impact with reliable instruments. Another limitation was the lack of measurement of the IDP process. Further, other universities and institutions should tailor the program to their demographic and educational background, needs and resources. For example, at MSU, many students in the program were enrolled from the biology department, and participants were disproportionately female. These conditions may vary at other institutions, and such changes may have implications for implementation and evaluation of the program. Thus, we do not imply that our results would replicate across all other settings. The Cronbach’s Alpha discrepancy between pre-test and post-test was also another limitation to examine in the future. At MSU and beyond, we are continuing to study and will report on the model in a few years; we welcome collaborations with other institutions.

We also need to explain the variation in numbers (sample size) across tables. Since its establishment, the SRC recruited over 250 undergraduate students as “SRC members” (stated under 3.2). This is an aggregate number, but there was considerable variation in the number of active members across semesters. As new students join the program, many students would graduate. For example, in spring 2020, the SRC had 74 active student members. When surveys were administered, only active members were invited to participate, and from this number, only a proportion participated in the survey. We have mentioned in the results that 50 SRC members responded to the survey. Table 1 breaks down the distribution of the 74 students who were SRC members in spring 2022. Table 2 summarizes the results of the survey that were only returned by 50 SRC members. Table 3 presents the number of SRC students who participated in the HRCC at some point between spring 2017 and spring 2020 (n = 59).