The development of scientific communication skills: A qualitative study of the perceptions of trainees and their mentors

As doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows in the biomedical sciences progress through their academic careers, they are trained not only in research skills but also in the norms of their disciplines.1 This model is in keeping with the apprenticeship style of teaching that dominates graduate basic science education--the required “curriculum” of skills and behaviors often is not explicit and is taught by role modeling rather that formal didactics.2 Despite educators’ wide acceptance of the critical importance of written and oral communication skills for trainees to succeed in academic research1-6, formal education in this area is seldom a top priority for graduate programs, and organizing communication training is typically a major challenge for trainees and mentors* alike. Even when trainees begin producing publishable research, formal communication training is often not available to them. As graduate students in the biomedical sciences begin to transition from the student model of education to the apprentice model of research training, entering a community of practice7, they typically develop dedicated relationships with their supervising principal investigator. In these relationships, the mentor, often the principal investigator, provides training unique to the discipline and research specialty and plays a major role in the trainee’s socialization in the discipline. The trainees’ responsibilities include beginning to produce formal professional-level oral and written products acceptable to the community and to develop the capacity to participate in the informal professional discourse of the community. Eager to enter the discipline, trainees seek to emulate the particular styles and conventions modeled by their research mentors.1,8-11 During this process, research mentors help trainees develop oral and written communication skills ad hoc, often with little experience in language education and few resources. Not all mentors however view this job as part of their responsibilities as mentors.1,12 For the growing number of mentors and trainees for whom English is not their primary language, these issues regarding oral and written communication skills are more complex. These trainees do not always recognize that their writing abilities need improvement13, and they may find that developing their English skills is overwhelming as they work to bridge the gaps between their grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and rhetorical styles and those of formal scientific English.6,14-16 Mentors who are themselves non-native English speakers in turn can find the responsibility of instructing their trainees in spoken and written English especially challenging. Because of the important role that mentors play in trainees’ development1, knowing more about how mentors and trainees navigate both this process of teaching and learning scientific communication skills and trainees’ entrance into communities of practice can help us to create the most useful and practical methods and resources to support this critical learning. Some innovative scientific communication programs already exist. For example, Cargill and O’Connor17 created writing courses that are delivered through the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which pair a science content expert with a writing expert to teach English-language research writing skills. Also, the Dissertation House program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (http://my.umbc.edu/groups/dh) and other similar programs, as well as less formal writing groups, provide social and content-area support to graduate students struggling with writer’s block and writing-related procrastination and time management obstacles. The Writing and Publishing Scientific Articles workshop at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC)5, which is taught by scientific editors, provides interactive and in-depth instruction in the format and content of research articles, while the Scientific English program, also at MDACC4, accelerates non-native English speaking trainees’ acquisition of spoken and written English. In addition to such programs, textbooks and instruction manuals on scientific writing15-16,18-21 are readily available. While undeniably valuable, these resources do not fully address the developmental needs of trainees. Skillful scientific writing requires not only a full command of the scientific content but also interpretive and critical thinking skills, organizational skills, and the mastery of paraphrase and summary, grammar, and diction. Furthermore, trainees must apply culture-specific rhetorical conventions that underpin both English-language and discipline-specific academic discourse--the secret handshake that is easy when you know it but mysterious and opaque when you do not.8,14,15,22,23 Learning these skills is a gradual process, with continuous practice accompanied by specific, constructive feedback.1,2,11,24-26 In addition to working hard to master technical writing skills, many trainees (and some of their mentors) also struggle with affective challenges, such as writer’s block and perfection paralysis.27-28 Not only do trainees have to master such written communication skills, but they also must develop oral communication skills, including those for both planned presentations (journal clubs, conference presentations) and spontaneous speech (lab discussions, professional networking). Both types of professional oral communication require standardized academic styles of pronunciation and grammar, specialized vocabulary and phrasing, and culturally appropriate scientific arguments.15,23,29 For trainees with limited or no exposure to Standard Academic English in their formative years, acquiring these skills may be exceptionally challenging and accompanied by anxiety, discouragement, shame, and possibly apprehension about discrimination.30 Speech characteristics (such as accent, grammar, dialect) are powerful markers of identity and belonging, and differences in speech are often interpreted as markers of the speaker’s diminished credibility.30-40 Regardless of trainees’ linguistic background or acquired repertoire, however, their oral communication skills are limited by affective barriers, such as public speaking anxiety and shyness.41-45 Anxiety about public speaking can be particularly debilitating for non-native English speaking trainees and may ultimately inhibit their academic performance46 and goal achievement.47 While a few studies describe the difficulties that mentors and mentees face in teaching and learning oral and written scientific communication skills1,12,47, we are unaware of any that report on systematic investigations into the dynamics of mentor-mentee interaction, including either the perspectives of both mentors and trainees or all forms of scientific communication. Neither are we aware of any programs that purposefully assist both trainees and their mentors in learning and teaching scientific communication skills. Courses, writing groups, workshops, and textbooks are undoubtedly useful, but given that mentor feedback is the dominant means by which trainees acquire scientific communication skills1, we must pay more attention to how trainees and mentors imagine, experience, and construct this process. This knowledge will help us to find ways to benefit both trainees and mentors as they work together. In this exploratory, hypothesis-generating qualitative study, we examined how mentored junior researchers acquire scientific communication skills and what role mentoring plays in the process. We conducted focus groups and interviews with mentors and trainees at an academic health science institution with the goal of eliciting themes and constructs related to how mentors and trainees perceive trainees’ development of writing skills, oral presentation skills, and skills in spontaneous conversation, as well as the role that mentors play in this process.