Pilot Study of an Intervention to Increase Cultural Awareness in Research Mentoring: Implications for Diversifying the Scientific Workforce.

Angela Byars-Winston,Veronica Y Womack,Emily Utzerath,Amanda R Butz,Carrie L Saetermoe,Richard Mcgee,Sandra C Quinn,Stephen B Thomas

doi:10.1017/cts.2018.25

Abstract

Innovative evidence-based-interventions are needed to equip research mentors with skills to address cultural diversity within research mentoring relationships. A pilot study assessed initial outcomes of a culturally tailored effort to create and disseminate a novel intervention titled Culturally Aware Mentoring (CAM) for research mentors. Intervention development resulted in four products: a 6hr CAM training curriculum, a facilitator guide, an online pre-training module, and metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of CAM training. Participants were 64 research mentors from three US research-intensive universities. Quantitative pre and post-training evaluation survey data were collected. Participants found high value and satisfaction with the CAM training, reported gains in personal cultural awareness and cultural skills, and increased intentions and confidence to address cultural diversity in their mentoring. Study findings indicate that the CAM training holds promise to build research mentors' capacity and confidence to engage directly with racial/ethnic topics in research mentoring relationships.

Highlights

Innovative evidence-based interventions are needed to equip research mentors with skills to address cultural diversity within research mentoring relationships
We describe a cultural awareness intervention with skill-building components aimed at supporting research mentors’ confidence to engage in and respond to sensitive topics related to race/ethnicity as they mentor diverse scholars, those from historically underrepresented (HU) groups
This paper reports on findings from a pilot study assessing the development process and initial outcomes of an intensive, multi-institution effort led by the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) Mentor Training Core to create and disseminate a novel intervention to teach Culturally Aware Mentoring (CAM) to research mentors

Summary

Introduction

Innovative evidence-based interventions are needed to equip research mentors with skills to address cultural diversity within research mentoring relationships. A pilot study assessed initial outcomes of a culturally tailored effort to create and disseminate a novel intervention titled Culturally Aware Mentoring (CAM) for research mentors. Evidence of racism and race-based prejudice and discrimination in the biomedical sciences and health professions would be easy to ignore, were they not so well documented [1, 2]. The persistent racial disparities in professional attainments, including earned degrees and awards of federally funded R01 and other grants [5, 6], exposes the fact that race and ethnicity matter in biomedical and health science careers. One of those factors documented in the scientific literature is access to evidencebased mentorship [5], mentorship that embraces and celebrates the cultural diversity within mentoring relationships

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