The Problem Multiculturalism is a major component of psychological education. In fact, the American Psychological Association's (2007) Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major include objectives related to multicultural and cross-cultural awareness. An important scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) topic within the field, therefore, is how to help students achieve that learning outcome. Because many psychology students ultimately hope to use their bachelor's degrees to pursue human services careers, counseling-related courses tend to be popular and can be an important area in which to incorporate diversity. Furthermore, Sue, Arredondo, and McDavis (1992) have defined three core components of multicultural competence in counseling: knowledge, skills, and attitudes/beliefs. There is a general lack of research, however, on if or how undergraduate courses help students achieve these objectives (e.g., Estrada, Durlak, & Juarez, 2002). Problem-based learning is an educational strategy that involves students working together to address real-world problems, and it has been shown to have beneficial effects on student engagement and achievement in medical and science classrooms (Kelly et al., 2005; Sungur, Tekkaya, & Geban, 2006). This investigation will explore the impact of a semester length problem-based learning project in a Multicultural Counseling and Mental Health (MCMH) class to assess whether students show changes not only in knowledge, but also in attitudes and educationally-appropriate skills. Results will be compared to a control group and a prior semester of the MCMH class without the problem-based project.

Methodologies & Types of Evidence of Student Learning Gathered Students in MCMH will engage in a semester-long problem-based learning project in which they design a culturally-responsive community mental health center. To assess the impact of the class and this project, they, and a control group from another class, will be invited to complete anonymous surveys at the beginning and end of the semester that will be linked by a fictitious name. They will provide basic demographic information and complete a measure of diversity attitudes, the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (Neville, Lilly, Duran, Lee, & Brown, 2000). Students will also fill out a survey about their multicultural skills (e.g., ability to understand and respond to cultural differences in nonverbal and verbal communication). Changes in knowledge will be evaluated by comparing student performance in the class (e.g., on common exam questions) with previous semesters in which the problem-based learning project was not used. The project itself involves students working in groups of five to design a culturally responsive community mental health center. Each team serves as "consultants" for one specific racial/ethnic group (e.g., African Americans). They are working outside of class to create a relevant annotated bibliography, other written materials, and a brief class presentation. They are also completing in-class assignments that ask them to link the course material for that day to their projects (e.g., after discussing racial identity and acculturation models, having students brainstorm questions or methods to assess these constructs in center clients).

Project Summary Multicultural competence is critical in our diverse and ever-changing world. Psychologists have endorsed the importance of multicultural education, and they have attempted to identify specific attributes associated with multicultural competence. This project will examine an applied undergraduate Psychology course that deals with issues of multicultural counseling and mental health. Small groups of students will work on a problem-based project that asks them to design a culturally-responsive community mental health center. Each group will conduct research on a specific racial/ethnic group and then make culturally-informed decisions about things like structural design, location, counseling and ancillary services offered, staff composition, and necessary staff training. They will complete both in and out of class assignments which link course material to their proposed centers. The impact of working on this project will be assessed in terms of students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes/attitudinal awareness.

Annotated List of Helpful Resources & References APA Board of Educational Affairs Task Force on Psychology Major Competencies (2007). APA guidelines for the undergraduate psychology major. Retrieved November 1, 2007 from: http://www.apa.org/ed/psymajor_guideline.pdf. Estrada, A.U., Durlak, J.A., & Juarez, S.C. (2002). Developing multicultural counseling competencies in undergraduate students. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 30, 110-123. Kelly, P. A., Haidet, P., Schneider, V., Searle, N., Seidel, C. L., & Richards, B. F. (2005). A comparison of in-class learner engagement across lecture, problem-based learning, and team learning using the STROBE classroom observation tool. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 17, 112-118. Neville, H.A., Lilly, R.L., Duran, G., Lee, R.M., & Brown, L. (2000). Construction and initial validation of the color-blind racial attitudes scale (CoBRAS). Journal of Counseling Psychology, 47, 59-70.* Sue, D.W., Arredondo, P., & McDavis, R.J. (1992). Multicultural counseling competencies and standards: A call to the profession. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 20, 64-89. Sungur, S., Tekkaya, C., & Geban, O. (2006). Improving achievement through problem-based learning. Journal of Biological Education, 40, 155-160. *Article and information about this measure available through many university and other library systems. **Information about the skills survey is available from the author upon request.

Anticipated Findings, Results, Conclusions, & Implications Although data collection is complete, final results will not be available until after the conclusion of the semester because students were told data would not be evaluated until grades were recorded. Hypothesized results are that MCMH students will show significant changes in attitudes or attitude awareness and skills from pre-test to post-test, and that control group students will not. Furthermore, it is anticipated that knowledge gains (e.g., overall performance on specific test items) for MCMH students will be greater than when the class was taught without the incorporation of problem-based learning. If these are the results, they have the potential to add to our knowledge base about diversity education and problem-based learning. They may also help us to understand specific mechanisms for increasing cultural competence.

Career Relevance & Impact Participating in this program has encouraged me to continue this line of research and has helped me obtain a fresh perspective on it. The opportunity to exchange ideas with colleagues from across disciplines and across campuses has greatly enriched my thinking about my teaching, my scholarship, and the dynamic relationship between the two.