IGE: Enhancing Doctoral Research Training through Cascading Mentorship (Anteater Huddles)

这项授予加州大学欧文分校的国家科学基金会研究生教育创新（IGE）奖将测试一项针对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）博士生的级联指导计划。一个有几个世纪历史的博士指导模式认为，学生通过在实验室的工作台上与指导老师一起学习。然而，研究已经演变成一种团队活动，导师和学生扮演不同的角色，很少在同一任务中一起工作。在这种环境下，学生通常从高级研究生和博士后研究人员那里学习大部分研究技能，而不是他们的指导教师。级联师徒关系描述了这样一种由教师和同伴组成的丰富网络进行指导的模式。接受层叠式指导的博士生比那些不考虑其主要指导老师的指导质量的博士生更有可能发展出强大的研究技能。然而，并不是所有的学生都在大型的、运转良好的实验室里接受培训，那里有现成的层叠式导师网络。此外，与大多数教师有共同或不同的文化认同，以及第一代学生接触具有博士学位经历的教师导师、朋友或家庭成员的方式存在差异等因素，都可能导致辅导质量的差异。因此，当博士项目不能提供丰富的连锁指导网络时，来自少数族裔社区的学生可能会遭受最大的损失。在这个项目中，大约65名认知科学领域的高级研究生和博士后研究员将接受培训，领导由5到10名博士生组成的级联导师小组。这些小组将使用经过验证的教学方法来帮助成员计划他们的研究，组织他们的时间，并学会撰写学术成功所依赖的写作形式，如：文献综述，资助提案，研究报告等。该项目将解决与四个规模扩大挑战相关的研究问题：1)小组领导效应，即当这些指导小组由高级研究生而不是由教师领导时，这种方法是否有效；2)实施成本，即这些小组是否能够以大多数博士项目负担得起的方式得到支持；3)多年来师徒级联对各领域的长期影响，包括：写作数量和质量；通过研究生项目取得进展；心理健康和福祉；4)广泛适用性，即该模式是否对所有学生都同样有效，还是只有一部分学生受益。该项目的结果将帮助各院系决定是在整个项目范围内采用级联指导模式，还是将该模式作为一部分学生的选择。研究生教育创新（IGE）项目专注于研究生教育的研究。IGE的目标是试点、测试和验证研究生教育的创新方法，并产生将这些方法推广到更广泛的社区所需的知识。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This National Science Foundation Innovations of Graduate Education (IGE) award to the University of California-Irvine will test a cascading mentorship program for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) doctoral students. A centuries-old model of doctoral mentoring assumed that students learn by working alongside their faculty advisors at the lab bench. However, research as evolved into a team activity with advisors and students serving different roles and rarely working together at the same task. In this environment, students typically learn most research skills from advanced graduate students and postdoctoral researchers rather than their faculty advisors. Cascading mentorship describes such a model of mentoring from a rich network of faculty and peers. Doctoral students who receive cascading mentorship are much more likely to develop strong research skills than those who do not regardless of the quality of mentoring received from their primary faculty advisors. However, not all students are trained in large, well-functioning labs with ready-made cascading mentorship networks. In addition, factors such as shared or dissimilar cultural identity with the majority of faculty and differences in first-generation students’ access to faculty mentors, friends, or family members with doctoral degree experience may result in differences in the quality of mentoring. Thus, when doctoral programs fail to provide rich networks of cascading mentorship, it is the students from minority communities who are likely to suffer most.In this project, approximately 65 advanced graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in cognitive science will be trained to lead cascading mentorship groups of five to ten doctoral students each. The groups will use proven pedagogical methods to help members plan their research, organize their time, and learn to produce the forms of writing on which academic success depends such as: literature reviews, funding proposals, research reports, etc. This project will address research questions related to four scale-up challenges: 1) group leader effects, i.e., whether the approach works when these mentorship groups are led by advanced graduate students rather than by a faculty member; 2) implementation cost, i.e., whether these groups can be supported in a way that is affordable for most doctoral programs; 3) long-term effects of cascading mentorship over a period of years in a variety of domains including: writing quantity and quality; progress through the graduate program; mental health and well-being; and 4) broad suitability, i.e., whether the model is equally effective for all students or whether only a subset of students benefit. Results from this project will help departments decide whether to adopt a cascading mentorship model program-wide or offer this model as an option for a subset of students.The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is focused on research in graduate education. The goals of IGE are to pilot, test and validate innovative approaches to graduate education and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.