17th Society for Prevention Research Annual Meeting

SPR Cup

Thursday, May 28, 2009
1:15 pm – 2:45 pm - SLOBODA AND BUKOSKI SPR CUP COMPETION, TEAM PRESENTATIONS
Chair: J. Mark Eddy and Charles Martinez, Oregon Social Learning Center

March 6, 2009 Update

Introduction

Significant advances in prevention science are often due to a team of individuals working closely together across many years. In recognition of the importance of the collaborative process to the field, the Society for Prevention Research (SPR) will sponsor a friendly competition amongst teams of researchers for the honor of bringing home the traveling Sloboda and Bukoski SPR Cup for the 2009-2010 academic year.

The Cup is named for two of the founders and long time active members of SPR, Dr. Zili Sloboda and Dr. William Bukoski. The Cup competition is an opportunity for an unique experience: several independent teams of scientists, each working with the same data set, problem solve together for a brief period of time and then jointly present their ideas to each other and a larger group of experienced prevention scientists.

Competition

SPR Cup teams will receive a data set via email two months prior to the SPR Annual Meeting. Each team then will conduct a literature review, generate hypotheses, conduct analyses, and prepare a presentation for a 10-minute symposium talk on their results. The competition will be held on Thursday, May 28, 2009, from 1:45 to 2:45 p.m.

Teams will present their results during an invited symposium at the SPR annual meeting. A panel of senior prevention scientist judges and the audience at the symposium will rate the quality of the research work and of the presentation. Both verbal and written feedback will be provided to teams about their work.

The highest scoring team will be recognized and awarded the SPR Cup during the SPR Awards Ceremony. The Awards Ceremony will be held on Thursday, May 28, 2009, from 4:45 to 5:30 p.m.

Past team champions include the Sun Devil Scholars from the Prevention Research Center from the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University in 2006, the Prevention Geeks from the State of Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services in 2007, and the Prevention Fellows from the Prevention Research Center of the College of Health and Human Development at The Pennsylvania State University in 2008.

Teams

Four teams will be competing for the Cup this year.

Data Set

A public data set relevant to prevention science will be used. During the past three years, the data sets were from the Monitoring the Future Project and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The identity of the data set will be released during a conference call of team captains held on or before March 26, 2009. Each team captain will be contacted soon by Ms. Diana Strand to schedule this call.

Mentors

An experienced SPR Cup prevention science mentor will be assigned to advise each team and will be available for consultation via phone or email on an as needed basis. Teams may access other mentors as desired. All mentors must be acknowledged during the presentation.

Publication

All participating teams will be strongly encouraged to refine their analyses after the meeting and to generate publishable products. The highest scoring teams may be invited to submit a manuscript to be considered for publication in SPR’s flagship journal Prevention Science. To date, the Arizona State University team and The Pennsylvania State University teams from the first year of competition have published manuscripts related to their SPR Cup presentations in peer-reviewed journals. Other manuscripts are in progress.

Questions

J. Mark Eddy, Ph.D.
Co-Chair 2009 Sloboda and Bukoski SPR Cup
marke@oslc.org
(541) 485-2711