Improving Retention of Minority Trainees: Mentoring in Scientific Communications

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Mastery of written and oral communication skills is essential for the survival of faculty everywhere. It can be a challenge for scientists from any background, but may be especially difficult for those who are educationally under-prepared or who have had limited exposure to standard academic English. Teaching such skills typically falls to mentors, who often find this task labor intensive and frustrating, with few tools available. Non-native English-speaking mentors may have particular difficulty, but even mentors with excellent English-language skills may not know how to teach these skills effectively. Unfortunately, struggling unsuccessfully with these skills can have multiple negative impacts on trainees and their mentors. For these reasons, the critical gap we address is identification of mentor and trainee factors that influence trainee scientific communication skills development, including response to being identified for training, particularly if such factors contribute to the historical lack of minority representation In science and academia. Participants will be drawn from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center with additional underrepresented trainees recruited from nearby institutions. The aims are to (1) Assess trainees' practices, attitudes, confidence, and needs in scientific communication from a cross-section of 1300 research graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, using an online survey and comparing across trainee categories (e.g., race-ethnicity, gender, education, language status); and (2) Assess mentors' practices, attitudes, and confidence In developing trainees' scientific communication skills from a sample of 550 current and recent mentors compared across rank, gender, race and ethnicity, and other demographic characteristics, including language status. Results will help us develop needs assessment tools in scientific communication skill development, and lay the foundation for creating and adapting educational activities. In future, we will design an educational curriculum in scientific communication culturally and linguistically appropriate for mentors and trainees to integrate into existing activities. In creating such a curriculum. we can test the hypothesis that mentors can coach trainees more effectively in written and oral communication skills when they have detailed. objective evaluations of their trainees' communication skills. Such culturally appropriate tools and strategies for mentoring can enable mentors to provide more individualized coaching and referral to expert teaching, if necessary. We expect that this innovative method will help mentors of all trainees, but be especially effective in launching careers of investigators at high risk for failure due to weak communication skills.