Search Results (36)

The Clean Air Research and Education (CARE) program, launched in 2020, aims to enhance environmental health (EH) and noncommunicable disease (NCD) research capacity in the Republic of Georgia. This paper evaluates the first 4.5 years of CARE, summarizing fellows’ activities and achievements to date and fellow and faculty reactions to CARE. In February 2025, CARE leadership anonymously surveyed fellows (100% response rate: n = 23/23; 4 Master’s of Public Health [MPH], 19 PhD) and faculty (66.7%: n = 10/15; 6 Georgia-based, 4 US-based). Thesis/dissertation topics included tobacco (43.5%), air pollution and respiratory outcomes (each 21.7%), lead exposure and cancer-related and cardiovascular outcomes (each 13.0%), and others. Fellows leveraged CARE’s financial support for research execution (78.3%), scientific conferences (34.8%), specific training (21.7%, n = 5/23), and/or publication fees (26.1%). Fellows indicated that the most valuable program aspects were opportunities for (1) building/expanding professional networks; (2) exposure to experts and training; and (3) instrumental support to pursue their PhD and conduct research. Fellows and faculty prioritized sustaining the following: structured mentor–mentee relationships; involvement of US-based mentors; support identifying research funding and preparing publications; and training in methods/data analysis. This study provides a model for evaluating other research training programs and highlights the important role such programs may play in developing the capacity to conduct relevant public health research in low- and middle-income countries. Full article

A principal strategic goal of the RCMI Coordinating Center (RCMI-CC) is to improve the health of minority populations and to reduce ethnic and geographic disparities in health by coordinating the development and facilitating the implementation of clinical research across the RCMI Consortium. To more effectively spur inter-institutional collaborative research, the RCMI-CC supports a Clinical Research Pilot Projects Program for hypothesis-driven clinical research projects proposed by postdoctoral fellows, early-career faculty and/or early-stage investigators from two or more RCMI U54 Centers. The purpose of this brief report is to summarize the Science Speed Dating sessions to facilitate cross-site collaboration at the RCMI Investigator Development Core (IDC) Workshop, held in conjunction with the 2024 RCMI Consortium National Conference. RCMI investigators and IDC Directors from 20 RCMI U54 Centers participated in two rounds of highly interactive small-group presentations of research ideas and resource needs in search of new collaborative and mentoring partnerships. Workshop participants expressed a high level of satisfaction with the speed-networking format and strongly agreed that the workshop was beneficial to their professional-development goals. Full article

This paper presents my personal experiences of cross-disciplinary national and international academic mentoring over 30 years in a higher education setting, supporting 605 mentees in public health, health education, and the health services. I supported mentees at diverse career stages through (a) one-to-one mentoring relationships (n = 231 mentees; from the UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Australasia; academics, industry, and healthcare professionals), (b) a cross-faculty structured mentoring programme (n = 52; junior faculty), (c) a cross-institutional interprofessional internship programme including mentoring and public health placements (n = 302 interns; from five universities), and (d) an interprofessional learning programme in workplace health called WHIRL, which was embedded within Test@Work, a public health innovation bridging health promotion practice, research, and industry and involving peer mentoring and mentor support (n = 20; volunteer healthcare trainees). In this paper, I outline the broader concept of mentoring, together with an overview of mentoring types, uses, and benefits. The diverse contexts in which mentoring occurs are discussed: (i) micro-mentoring, (ii) inducting new staff, (iii) peer mentoring, (iv) career transition moments, (v) career advancement mentoring, (vi) diversity mentoring, (vii) knowledge sharing mentoring, (viii) collaborative learning and support mentoring, and (ix) leadership development mentoring. The challenges of mentoring are presented alongside suggested actions to take. I advocate for mentoring evaluation and provide a worked example of measuring the outcomes of one-to-one mentoring using The Career Support and Psychosocial Support Scales (online survey; n = 103 mentees; from 22 countries). Finally, I reflect upon the diversity of mentoring experiences, with activities and benefits categorised into six key areas: interpersonal relationships; networking opportunities; enhancing knowledge and skills; employment, reward and recognition; support for under-served groups; and convening communities of practice. Full article

Accurately evaluating postgraduate education satisfaction is crucial for improving higher education quality and optimizing management practices. Traditional methods often fail to capture the complex behavioral interactions among influencing factors. In this study, an innovative satisfaction indicator system framework is proposed that integrates a two-stage feature optimization method and the Tree Augmented Naive Bayes (TAN) model. The framework is designed to assess key satisfaction drivers across seven dimensions: course quality, research projects, mentor guidance, mentor’s role, faculty management, academic enhancement, and quality development. Using data from 8903 valid responses, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted to validate the framework’s reliability. The two-stage feature optimization method, including statistical pre-screening and XGBoost-based recursive feature selection, refined 49 features to 29 core indicators. The TAN model was used to construct a causal network, revealing the dynamic relationships between factors shaping satisfaction. The model outperformed four common machine learning algorithms, achieving an AUC value of 91.01%. The Birnbaum importance metric was employed to quantify the contribution of each feature, revealing the critical roles of academic resilience, academic aspirations, dedication and service spirit, creative ability, academic standards, and independent academic research ability. This study offers management recommendations, including enhancing academic support, mentorship, and interdisciplinary learning. Its findings provide data-driven insights for optimizing key indicators and improving postgraduate education satisfaction, contributing to behavioral sciences by linking satisfaction to outcomes and practices. Full article

Program managers of undergraduate research experience programs play a pivotal role in students’ learning experiences. However, their roles in this program are seldom understood and explored. One reason is that a greater focus has been put on faculty and student mentorship. Although many faculty mentors succeed in providing students with adequate support for their learning experience, students can also benefit from having access to multiple mentors, such as program managers. In this study, we employed a qualitative approach to identify the common experiences of education and outreach program managers in managing engineering undergraduate summer research experience programs and mentoring students in the United States. The findings indicate that the participants provided career and technical support that contributed to students’ success by providing general guidance, professional development opportunities, and access to resources. Also, the participants engaged in active listening and training, and supported inclusive activities to promote students’ psychosocial support. From the findings, we provide recommendations for program managers and faculty members to help reinforce students’ learning in research programs. Full article

College is an important context for young adults to cultivate developmental assets, solidify vocational plans, and nurture meaningful relationships. National data from Gallup have highlighted key experiences that positively impact a student’s experience while at college and their life after graduation. These “Big Six” experiences, including relationships with faculty and mentors and participation in high-impact practices, predict student success. Similarly, both theory and research underscore the importance of relationships, active engagement, and exploration in cultivating purpose and long-term aims. Little work has examined the cumulative and relative value of the “Big Six” experiences in explaining purpose development in college. The present cross-sectional and exploratory study sought to address this gap. Specifically, this study utilized hierarchical linear regression to examine the impact of different experiences and relationships on college student purpose at a small, liberal arts university in the Southeast region of the United States (n = 758). The results indicated that a greater number of “Big Six” experiences were predictive of a stronger purpose. Furthermore, experiences centered on relationships mattered relatively more in fostering purpose among college students than participation in high-impact practices. The findings are discussed in the context of the literature and recommendations for higher-education institutions are made. Full article

This study examined critical factors in a mentoring system within a federally-funded Pathways to the Education Sciences Research Training Program to prepare undergraduates at a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) for graduate studies in educational research. Our conceptual framework integrates an inclusive model of family engagement consistent with the literature recommendations for diverse families of college students. We considered the following question: what is the role of family and friends within an orchestrated network of mentors who provide support to undergraduate fellows from minoritized groups in their pathways toward graduate studies in educational sciences? We analyzed quantitative and qualitative responses from an end-of-program survey administered to one cohort of this program. Within their mentoring network, fellows reported that family and friends provided important support in socio-emotional, cognitive, and identity development, but not as strong as that provided by distributed faculty and academic mentors. This study furthers our understanding of the role of family and friends within an orchestrated network of mentors within our Pathways Training Program. However, we still need to extend our knowledge of how research training programs at HSIs can be more intentional in emphasizing the important contributions family and friends provide to promote the success of diverse students in their pathways toward graduate studies. Full article

Numerous studies document the benefits of participating in undergraduate research experiences (UREs), including greater odds of enrolling in graduate school. However, there is a lack of understanding about how UREs support student success. This study examines survey and interview data from a multi-year program evaluation of a National Institutes of Health-funded biomedical training program to consider whether and how participating in a URE fosters students’ sense of belonging, which is an important predictor of retention and graduation. Analyzing the quantitative survey data revealed that participating in the URE was positively associated with a sense of belonging even after controlling for students’ background characteristics, including gender, race or ethnicity, first-generation status, commuting burden, and age. Additionally, there was a positive relationship between a sense of belonging and odds of applying to graduate school. Path analysis suggests that the URE has an indirect relationship with applying to a graduate program that operates through the URE’s direct relationship with sense of belonging. Interview data offered insights into how the URE supported an increased sense of belonging. Specifically, we found that the URE fostered a sense of belonging when (1) faculty research mentors develop authentic, personal, and caring relationships with mentees, (2) the URE program welcomes, cultivates, and supports women and racially diverse students, and (3) the URE is embedded within a university environment that allows for faculty and peer engagement. Full article

(1) The in-school placement is a key scenario in linking theory and practice in the processes of initial teacher education (ITE) and constitutes a crucial element in the understanding of professional competencies and the experimentation of educational innovation proposals. For this reason, the pedagogical model that guides teaching practices and the set of learning activities that university and school mentors develop is especially relevant. This paper aims to analyze the current individualized monitoring processes of student teachers, as well as to detect difficulties and needs for improvement. (2) The center of interest corresponds to the internship mentors of the ITE degrees of the Faculty of Education Sciences at the University of Santiago de Compostela. This research was carried out through a descriptive study with a survey method and a study sample of 202 mentors. (3) Results show that there are discrepancies in the activities that university and school mentors implement with students, as well as in the observation and supervision processes. (4) We propose a learning reflective methodology based on the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model to coordinate agents involved in the internship, connecting them through a specialized eLearning environment equipped with specific tools to facilitate the processes of individualized monitoring, reflective learning, and self-regulation. Full article

There is great interest in promoting research in academic institutions and a need to understand the various factors influencing it. The main goals of this study are to investigate the factors that predict academic research outcomes and how gender and research authority (RA) support programs affect the relationship between research self-efficacy and research interest. The participants included 143 faculty members who completed a questionnaire, 19 of whom were interviewed. The results indicate that the faculty members’ research interests and the RA’s support significantly predicted academic research outcomes. A positive and significant correlation was found between research self-efficacy and research interest. Gender and RA support were found to significantly moderate this relationship. Research self-efficacy had almost no effect on research interest among female faculty members and among faculty members who had received support from the research authority. In contrast, among male faculty members and among those who did not receive support from the research authority, the higher the research self-efficacy, the higher the research interest. An analysis of faculty members’ perceptions points to four factors that can advance research outcomes: support from the RA, mentoring, collaboration among researchers, and allotting time for research. Understanding the moderating role of gender is important to reveal the underlying mechanism of a gender gap in research interest and consequently in academic performance, considering the increased recognition that universities worldwide are male dominated and that women are underrepresented in senior positions in academia. Full article

The body of literature on the integration of Christianity and psychology and/or counseling indicates that integration is best learned and taught through spiritual formation and mentoring relationships. More specifically, the ongoing spiritual formation of counseling or psychology faculty in Christian, integrative programs and their ability to mentor students well are significant in shaping the integrative development of those they educate and train, and for ensuring integrative practice. However, what is underexplored in the literature is how faculty members in integrative programs might personally grow and develop in these areas if they are not already in existence or are underemphasized. This article seeks to address this need by providing an overview of practical ways for strengthening the spiritual formation and mentoring opportunities for Christian, integrative faculty, ultimately with the aim of encouraging greater integrative activity in counselors entering the field. Through a review of the pertinent counseling literature, as well as scholarship on spiritual formation, and spiritual formation and mentoring in educational contexts, a summative list of practical strategies is presented. Implications for broader use and application are also discussed, along with potential opportunities for future research. Full article

This work proposes a structural model highlighting the research skills of undergraduate students. Due to the stages in their research project implementation, mentoring students becomes a crucial initiative in higher education institutions. Despite substantial progress in the literature linking mentoring and skills development, there is a lack of greater emphasis on research skills, especially for undergraduate students facing research work for the first time. Consequently, the direct relation between mentoring and research skills may not be straightforward. Thus, driven by social learning theory, the proposed model highlights the mediating effects of information literacy constructs and competency development on the relationship between mentoring and research skills. An empirical study of 539 participants via Partial Least Squares–Structural Equation Modeling supports six of the seven hypothesized paths. Three major theoretical contributions arise from the findings. Firstly, mentoring improves information-seeking skills and information-sharing behaviors and facilitates students’ competency development due to the technical knowledge transfer from the faculty mentor to student mentees. Secondly, information literacy constructs and competency development promote research skills, emphasizing that students with those behaviors and capacities will achieve enhanced research skills. Finally, our findings suggest that mentoring does not directly translate to improved research skills; instead, information-seeking and sharing behaviors and competency development fully mediate such a link. Thus, mentors must shape these behaviors for mentoring to develop students’ research skills. Theoretical and practical insights are outlined from these findings for university leadership to inform the design of mentoring initiatives for undergraduate students. Full article

The goal of this research was to gain a holistic understanding of factors that support or inhibit graduate student success, with a particular interest in the experiences of underrepresented minorities, females in STEM, and first-generation college students. The Graduate Student Success Survey (GSSS) was developed and validated with 537 M.S. and Ph.D. students at a research-intensive university in the southeastern United States. Guided by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and informed by salient factors described in the literature and published surveys, items were developed to measure students’ perceptions of imposter syndrome, microaggressions, microaffirmations, mentoring, sense of belonging, financial support, and mentor relationships. This manuscript details the development of these items and validation of the GSSS with full- and part-time thesis-based graduate students across twelve colleges, six of which were STEM-focused. Validity and reliability were tested with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, resulting in a survey with seven subscales. Findings revealed significant differences in these graduate students’ experiences based on their gender identity, racial and ethnic group, citizenship status, and program area. The findings of this study report the experiences of graduate students at one institution. However, the validated survey and the recommendations resulting from the findings could be used to scaffold student success and provide insight for faculty and administrators on how to better support students. Full article

Background: Enhancement of diversity within the U.S. research workforce is a recognized need and priority at a national level. Existing comprehensive programs, such as the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) and Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI), have the dual focus of building institutional research capacity and promoting investigator self-efficacy through mentoring and training. Methods: A qualitative comparative analysis was used to identify the combination of factors that explain the success and failure to submit a grant proposal by investigators underrepresented in biomedical research from the RCMI and non-RCMI institutions. The records of 211 participants enrolled in the NRMN Strategic Empowerment Tailored for Health Equity Investigators (NRMN-SETH) program were reviewed, and data for 79 early-stage, underrepresented faculty investigators from RCMI (n = 23) and non-RCMI (n = 56) institutions were included. Results: Institutional membership (RCMI vs. non-RCMI) was used as a possible predictive factor and emerged as a contributing factor for all of the analyses. Access to local mentors was predictive of a successful grant submission for RCMI investigators, while underrepresented investigators at non-RCMI institutions who succeeded with submitting grants still lacked access to local mentors. Conclusion: Institutional contexts contribute to the grant writing experiences of investigators underrepresented in biomedical research. Full article

Profound health disparities are widespread among Native Hawaiians, other Pacific Islanders, and Filipinos in Hawai‘i. Efforts to reduce and eliminate health disparities are limited by a shortage of investigators trained in addressing the genetic, socio economic, and environmental factors that contribute to disparities. In this conference proceedings report from the 2022 RCMI Consortium National Conference, we describe our mentoring program, with an emphasis on community-engaged research. Elements include our encouragement of a team-science, customized Pilot Projects Program (PPP), a Mentoring Bootcamp, and a mentoring support network. During 2017–2022, we received 102 PPP preproposals. Of these, 45 (48%) were invited to submit full proposals, and 22 (19%) were awarded (8 basic biomedical, 7 clinical, 7 behavioral). Eighty-three percent of awards were made to early-career faculty (31% ethnic minority, 72% women). These 22 awards generated 77 related publications; 84 new grants were submitted, of which 31 were awarded with a resultant return on investment of 5.9. From 5 to 11 investigators were supported by PPP awards each year. A robust usage of core services was observed. Our descriptive report (as part of a scientific conference session on RCMI specialized centers) focuses on a mentoring vehicle and shows how it can support early-stage investigators in pursuing careers in health disparities research. Full article