The Social Organization of Some Science Research Apprentices in Scientific, Recreational, and Routine-Work Activities

Abstract

The activity of the Jackson Memorial Laboratory in promoting basic research includes an effort to provide an opportunity for young people to come in contact with research problems, techniques, and programs. An attempt is made to encourage and assist students of promise to explore the possibilities of research as a career by serving as apprentices to laboratory staff members who are engaged in full time research within the fields of experimental biology, psychology, or -medicine. Each year the Laboratory maintains a Summer Apprenticeship Program for collegiate students and one for precollegiate students. In the collegiate program, each accepted applicant works as a science apprentice under the direction of his staff sponsor throughout a 10-week period. At the end of the summer each apprentice presents an oral report on the results of his experimental work and files a written dissertation in the Laboratory's library. In addition to the specific apprentice training, each apprentice is exposed to a daily colloquium on research problems, theory, and methods. Also, each is exposed to most of the Laboratory's scientific conferences, evening seminars, and special demonstrations. The apprentices room and board at the Summer Student Colony, which is near the Main Laboratory building and is admirably located for a wide variety of individual and group scientific, recreational, and routinework activities. The purpose of this investigation was to study the social organization of some science students in the Summer Apprenticeship Program for collegiate students during three successive summers. This investigation was conducted as a portion of a larger study in which the science apprenticeship programs at the Laboratory are being evaluated, and in which preliminary information concerning the psychological characteristics and abilities of young potential research scientists is being collected. A description of the particular social organization believed to be conducive for effective apprentice training in the biological sciences has not been reported, so it was hoped that progress towards this long'A portion of this paper was presented at a panel on Group Structure at the Annual