The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM (2019) / Chapter Skim
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6 Assessment and Evaluation: What Can Be Measured in Mentorship, and How?
6 Assessment and Evaluation: What Can Be Measured in Mentorship, and How?
Pages 127-150
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From page 127... ...
. To fully understand mentorship, evaluation measures would ideally address both mentorship processes and mentorship outcomes and the system factors that can profoundly shape it.1 Measurement and evaluation play a critical role in assessing interventions, determining organizational priorities, and developing and testing theory -- three key elements that underlie understanding the effectiveness of mentorship.
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From page 128... ...
mechanisms by which mentorship is expected to operate and therefore the appropriate measures to use to assess mentorship activities and programs. This chapter focuses on quantitative measures, although the importance and value of qualitative assessment is acknowledged.
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2. What measures assess effective mentoring relationships in STEMM fields that allow for multiple mentoring relationships at one time?
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As noted throughout this report, contexts are important for mentorship. However, the committee failed to find any valid measures for assessing a culture of mentorship for STEMM undergraduate students and graduate students at the level of the department, college, or institution, or professional associations or societies.7 4 rganizational scholarship has relevant information that may be useful to consider factors, such as O resilience, that mediate mentorship (Kao et al., 2014)
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This model holds that personal, contextual, and relational inputs shape the characteristics of the mentoring relationship processes, and these relationship processes influence cognitive, emotional, and behavioral out puts. Outputs from mentorship in STEMM contexts vary widely across the literature, with examples including psychological processes such as self-efficacy, learning or skill, scholarly achievement, and enhanced career aspirations and advancement including persistence in STEMM pathways (Crisp and Cruz, 2009; Eby et al., 2013; Gershenfeld, 2014; Ghosh, 2014; Ghosh and Reio, 2013; Jacobi, 1991; Pfund et al., 2016; Sadler et al., 2010; Syed et al., 2011)
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. Benevolent mentorship support unctions -- career support, f psychosocial support, and role modeling, for example -- romote relationship quality, p which includes overall relationship satisfaction, trust, reciprocity, and effectiveness (Kram, 1985b)
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NOTES: Solid lines separate institutional perspective from mentor/mentee perspective, as there is little to no evidence connecting these perspectives. For simplicity, double-headed arrows were omitted where no evidence of a correlation exists in STEMM contexts.
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clinical and translational science trainees Global Measure of Mentorship One factor encompassing career Undergraduate STEMM Practices and psychosocial support and Graduate [GMMP, 18] networking (Dreher and Ash, 1990)
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in summer (Hoyt et al., 2012) research Mentoring Competency Maintaining effective Mentees Undergraduate STEMM Assessment communication [MCA, 26]
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(Dreher and Ash, 1990) was developed as a comprehensive assessment of mentorship support received, and it was adapted for use in postsecondary STEMM contexts by omit ting two questions that were irrelevant to graduate students and adding four additional questions that related to disseminating research and exploring career options (Tenen baum et al., 2001)
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? • Explored career options with you?
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As a result, the current assessments of mentorship from program and institutional perspectives do not align well with theoretical models of mentoring relationship processes such as career support, psychosocial support, role modeling, and negative experiences. There are several measures of relationship quality in STEMM contexts from the m entee perspective (Byars-Winston et al., 2015; Dennehy and Dasgupta, 2017; Ensher et al., 2001; Hernandez et al., 2016)
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. MENTORSHIP OUTCOMES Support for mentorship within STEMM contexts is more likely if comprehensive evidence shows how and why mentorship and specific mentorship processes are linked to desirable outcomes for mentees, mentors, and the research enterprise.
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. Studies have also shown that research experiences combined with quality mentorship that includes providing psychosocial and career support and networking opportunities contributes to students feeling integrated into STEMM fields (Estrada et al., 2018)
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As noted in a 2017 National Academies report on undergraduate research experi ences in STEM (NASEM, 2017b) , mentees perceive mentors who model ethical behav iors, kindness, and competence as exhibiting outstanding mentor qualities (Johnson,
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. Quality mentorship focusing on graduate students' psychosocial needs appears to increase how mentees perceive the quality of the mentoring relationship and how satisfied they are with that relationship, which in turn enables them to see them selves as more competent STEMM researchers (Tenenbaum et al., 2001; Waldeck et al., 1997)
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Such parallel measures can elucidate the degree to which mentees and mentors have shared views about the mentoring relationship and mentoring activities, which can be an indicator of their working alliance. One example of parallel mentoring 14 nformal I and formal mentoring relationships are discussed in Chapter 4.
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Results of the survey revealed a mismatch on some aspects in the mentoring relationship. Namely, mentors reported displaying more of the desired behav ior, such as, mentors sharing their own research career pathway, highlighting and giving direction for improving mentees' research outcomes, and affirming mentees' ability to be a scientist, than their mentees reported perceiving (see Table 6-2)
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Attitudes toward CDA in mentoring relationships X X Behaviors displaying mentors' CDA X X Confidence to enact CDA in mentoring relationship X SOURCES: aByars-Winston et al., 2016; bByars-Winston and Butz, 2018. scholars, and faculty on various outcomes.15 These investigations found that in "closed mentorship triads," which included a faculty mentor, a graduate student or postdoctoral mentor, and an undergraduate student mentee,16 interactions were the most beneficial for mentee outcomes such as science identity development (Aikens et al., 2016, 2017)
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Research outside of STEMM indicates that mentors' commitment to the mentoring relationship matters for mentorship outcomes (Allen and Eby, 2008)
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and can provide insight relevant to STEMM mentoring relationships. Here, the committee explores some recent advances in two methodologies -- dyadic data a nalysis and social network analysis of mentorship -- and poses further questions for inquiry.
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For instance, mentees who identify strongly with their mentor may perceive that they are receiving both career and psychosocial support and thus may require a simpler dyadic mentorship structure to meet their needs. Mentees who do not identify strongly with their mentor either personally or professionally may benefit from a more elaborate network of mentors, including others who share their identities or articular career interests.
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Most mentorship theories suggest that mentoring relationships change over time,21 and most correlational research assumes that change is linear -- that as trust increases, for example, so does relationship quality. However, experience implies that relationships can shift suddenly, such as when one act of betrayal irreversibly destroys a relationship or when one act of kindness transforms a struggling relationship.
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