"Where's My Mentor?!" Characterizing Negative Mentoring Experiences in Undergraduate Life Science Research
"Where's My Mentor?!" Characterizing Negative Mentoring Experiences in Undergraduate Life Science Research
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DOI：
10.1187/cbe.19-02-0036
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发表时间：
2019-12-01
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Dolan, Erin L.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Limeri, Lisa B.;Asif, Muhammad Zaka;Dolan, Erin L.
本科生在科学、技术、工程和数学领域的研究经验有助于促进学生的个人和专业发展。导师制是本科生研究不可或缺的一部分，因为有效的导师制最大限度地提高了本科生从参与研究中获得的好处。然而，几乎没有一项研究考察辅导不那么有效甚至存在问题的情况，尽管之前关于工作场所辅导的研究表明，负面的辅导经历很常见。在这里，我们报告了一项定性研究的结果，以定义和表征本科生生命科学研究人员的负面指导经验。在我们的研究中，本科生研究人员报告了他们经历负面指导的七种主要方式：缺勤、滥用权力、人际关系不匹配、职业支持的倾向、缺乏心理社会支持、期望不一致和不平等待遇。他们将其中一些经历描述为缺乏积极指导行为的结果，另一些则是积极有害行为的结果，他们认为这两种行为都对他们的心理社会和职业发展有害。我们的结果对导师来说是有用的，因为他们可以反思自己的行为可能被认为有害或无益。这些发现也可以作为未来研究的基础，旨在检查本科研究中负面指导经验的普遍性和影响。
Undergraduate research experiences in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields are championed for promoting students' personal and professional development. Mentorship is an integral part of undergraduate research, as effective mentorship maximizes the benefits undergraduates realize from participating in research. Yet almost no research examines instances in which mentoring is less effective or even problematic, even though prior research on mentoring in workplace settings suggests negative mentoring experiences are common. Here, we report the results of a qualitative study to define and characterize negative mentoring experiences of undergraduate life science researchers. Undergraduate researchers in our study reported seven major ways they experienced negative mentoring: absenteeism, abuse of power, interpersonal mismatch, tack of career support, lack of psychosocial support, misaligned expectations, and unequal treatment. They described some of these experiences as the result of absence of positive mentoring behavior and others as actively harmful behavior, both of which they perceive as detrimental to their psychosocial and career development. Our results are useful to mentors for reflecting on ways their behaviors might be perceived as harmful or unhelpful. These findings can also serve as a foundation for future research aimed at examining the prevalence and impact of negative mentoring experiences in undergraduate research.