Effectiveness of the SCOARE workshop designed to improve mentoring skills in scientific communication

Abstract

Background: The ability to communicate and disseminate research findings via publications and presentations is widely acknowledged to be critical to trainees’ career success in STEM disciplines1,2. What has been little appreciated until recently, however, is the social, psychological, and cognitive roles that scientific communication skill development and mentoring play in building intention to persist in research careers. Our scientific communication (SciComm) model, adapted from social cognitive career theory, showed that self-efficacy and outcome expectations in SciComm, along with scientist identity, influence trainees’ research career intentions. Active mentoring of SciComm skills influences trainees’ SciComm productivity (writing, presenting, and speaking), resulting in increased career intentions through trainee self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and science identity3. Based on these findings, we developed mentor-training workshops, “Scientific Communication Advances Research Excellence (SCOARE),” as an intervention to provide faculty mentors with strategies and tools for SciComm mentoring. Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the SCOARE workshops of the first year were effective in reducing mentors’ self-barriers to mentoring SciComm and in increasing mentors’ self-efficacy in SciComm and research and their actual SciComm skills. In addition, we examined whether these improvements were the same according to race/ethnicity and gender. Methods: Half-day SCOARE workshops, held in 2018-19 and funded by an NIGMS “Innovative Programs to Enhance Research Training” (IPERT) grant, were delivered at 4 sites including Georgia State University in Atlanta, the Gulf Coast Consortia in Houston, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the Big Ten in Chicago. In the workshop, mentors learned why and how to help their doctoral or postdoctoral trainees improve their SciComm skills. Moreover, the workshop helped mentors themselves reduce their own barriers and improve their self-efficacy to mentor their trainees by obtaining more and better strategies for SciComm mentoring skills. Mentors who were willing to participate in our research project completed a survey 2 weeks before the workshop and 6 months after the workshop. A series of repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine changes in self-efficacy, in self-barriers, and in mentoring practices before and after the workshop. Gender, race (white vs. non-White), and use of strategies were compared. Of the 60 mentors who registered for the study participation, 46 attended the workshop and completed both surveys. Mentor participants’ responses were collected from four sites (Atlanta, Colorado, Chicago, and Houston) in 2018 and 2019. Among the mentors who attended the workshop, 65% were female, and 67% had been mentoring for more than 7 years; 61% were White. About half of the participants were currently working in basic science. Results: Repeated-measure ANOVA results revealed that after the workshop, in general, mentors’ self-efficacy and mentoring practices in SciComm had increased, and their own barriers to mentoring SciComm had decreased. These changes were not significantly different by gender or race/ethnicity. Furthermore, mentors who used “adapted new” strategies based on what they learned in the workshop reported increased self-efficacy, improved mentoring practices and satisfaction with their mentoring practices, and a decrease in their own barriers, compared with mentors who continued to use the same strategies. Conclusions: Preliminary evidence indicates that the SCOARE workshop is helping mentors increase their confidence in mentoring their trainees in SciComm skills and stimulating their engagement in mentoring trainees’ SciComm tasks. Further studies will examine the effects of the workshop on subsequent trainee’ self-efficacy, scientist identity, and career intention. The SCOARE workshop will continue over 5 years at 4 sites and will collect responses from both mentors and their corresponding trainees. Speaker bio:Hwa Young Lee, Ph.D., is a program manager of the Cancer Prevention Research Training Program (CPRTP) at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is trained as an educational psychologist with deep expertise in quantitative methods (structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, and latent class models) and program evaluation. Her research interests include analysis of factors that influence trainees’ career intentions and promoting under-represented students in academia. In addition, as an insider-researcher, she is interested in helping non-native English-speaking trainees (L2) persist in their careers in academia, as well as helping mentors mentor their L2 trainees. Her favorite hobbies include watching movies, listening to rock music, traveling, eating diverse food, and having a good time with family and close friends.