Communication Skills to Build a Diverse Biomedical Workforce

This trial investigates how receiving instruction in communication skills affects short and long-term career outcomes for students, postdoctoral fellows, and future faculty. This may help researchers learn more about the factors that may help or block career goals and career persistence of trainees.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:

I. Determine communication across difference (CAD) workshop effects over time using experimental and control dyads of summer students and their matched junior mentors.

Ia. Develop and deliver CAD skills workshops to dyads of students and junior mentors.

Ib. Test CAD workshop effects for individual participants with pre-, post-, and follow-up surveys of model variables over the course of the intervention.

II. Identify causal relationships of the social-influence variables with experimental and control groups of dyads over the 9-month course of the intervention.

IIa. Assess the psychological processes and causal relationships for students linking CAD to career intentions.

IIb. Assess the psychological processes and causal relationships for junior mentors linking CAD to career intentions and intentions to mentor diverse students in the future.

IIc. Assess the paired interaction effects between dyad members using pre-, post-, and follow-up model variables over the course of the intervention.

III. Assess long-term outcomes of the intervention and predictive utility of the student and mentor models by measuring changes in Hallmarks of Success: distal career persistence and network growth for students and junior mentors, as well as junior mentors' engagement in mentoring of diverse students.

OUTLINE: Dyads of summer students and their matched junior mentors are assigned to 1 of 2 groups.

GROUP I (EXPERIMENTAL): Participants complete 2 communication workshops about conversational skills and development of a video about the summer student's research experience over 3 hours each during the second week of the summer research experience and 2-3 weeks before the conclusion of summer experience. Participants also complete surveys over 15 minutes each about their communication, their engagement with research, mentoring experience, and current career intentions, before participating in the workshop, after the second workshop and at 6 months after the conclusion of the summer experience.

GROUP II (CONTROL): Participants complete 2 generic communication workshops about networking and presentation skills over 3 hours each during the second week of the summer experience and 2-3 weeks before the conclusion of summer experience. Participants also complete surveys over 15 minutes each about their communication, their engagement with research, mentoring experience, and current career intentions, before participating in the workshop, after the second workshop and at 6 months after the conclusion of the summer experience.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

* FOR SUMMER STUDENTS: Currently an undergraduate, medical student, or early Master's or Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) level student who is participating in a structured summer research program and receiving daily research supervision from a junior mentor (defined as a Master's or PhD level graduate student, a postdoctoral fellow, or an instructor) within a faculty member's research team
* FOR JUNIOR MENTORS: Currently a Master's or PhD student; postdoctoral trainee; or instructor working within a faculty member's research team and supervising a summer research student

Exclusion Criteria:

* FOR SUMMER STUDENTS: High school students