Research Mentor Training: Initiatives of the University of Wisconsin Institute for Clinical and Translational Research

The University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) has served as a hub of multidisciplinary expertise in both research mentor and mentee training and evaluation, with long-standing, federally-funded efforts to support innovative practice, training interventions, and research to improve training programs for diverse scholars in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). Ten years ago, the Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching, co-directed by Drs. Pfund, Miller and Handelsman, led an effort to train future biology faculty to become more effective research mentors. Cohorts of biology graduate students, postdoctoral trainees, faculty, and staff met to discuss mentoring challenges and solutions, generating case studies and discussion questions along the way. Following evaluation and revision, these materials were published as Entering Mentoring,1 a manual to help others facilitate research mentor training seminars and workshops. Published evaluations of the Entering Mentoring seminars indicate that mentors who participate in training gain important skills.2 These trained mentors are more likely to consider issues of diversity, discuss expectations with their mentees, and to seek the advice of their peers. Entering Mentoring, since adapted to create nine different curricula that target specific STEM disciplines, has subsequently been used across the country to train hundreds of research mentors. All of these developed materials have been field-tested at UW in the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL, PI: Robert Mathieu) and are available at no charge on the project website (http://www.researchmentortraining.org). Entering Mentoring has served as a foundation and framework for the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA)-funded initiatives of the UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR). In 2010, a multidisciplinary team from five CTSA-funded institutions, supported by a CTSA Administrative Supplement awarded UW, sought to adapt Entering Mentoring to make it applicable for the mentors of clinical and translational researchers. Over a 6-month period, the curriculum team outlined, reviewed, and adapted learning objectives and core training activities to address six research mentoring competencies: (1) maintaining effective communication; (2) aligning expectations; (3) assessing understanding; (4) addressing diversity; (5) fostering independence; and (6) promoting professional development.3 Further adaptations and beta-testing followed, with the final curriculum published as Mentor Training for Clinical and Translational Researchers.4 Using this curriculum, as designed, allows small groups of mentors to engage in a discussion of case studies and activities intended to help them meet specific learning objectives, set forth for each of the six competencies. The curriculum is typically implemented in four 2-hour sessions, led by two trained facilitators. The Mentor Training for Clinical and Translational Researchers4 curriculum was evaluated in a randomized controlled trial conducted at 16 U.S. institutions (15 CTSA sites), between January 2010 and July 2011. A total of 283 mentor-mentee pairs were recruited, with 98% retention of participants through the trial. Mentors were allocated to the 8-hour training group (n = 144) or to the control group (n = 139). We hypothesized that this systematic, formal mentor training strategy would improve mentoring skills across the six core curriculum competencies, and positively influence behaviors. Baseline and six month post randomization interviews were conducted using the validated Mentoring Competency Assessment (MCA) tool5, newly developed for this trial. Follow-up surveys of mentors, who received training, documented statistically significant self-reported skill gains and self-reported changes in mentoring behaviors.6 In addition, interviewed mentees corroborated these positive changes. With this documented success, the most recent research mentor training initiative at UW, funded by a CTSA supplement, has been creation of a web-based Legacy Resource for mentoring development, which has been established to serve national and international mentors and mentees by dissemination of resources, most notably research mentor training curricula (https://mentoringresources.ictr.wisc.edu/). This website provides information on best mentoring practices, as well as access to mentor training curricula, such as Mentor Training for Clinical and Translational Researchers4. The website also offers facilitator training materials, assessment instruments, and centralized data collection for the evaluation of mentoring relationships and mentor training efforts, thus creating a mechanism for ongoing evaluation. Development of the new website consisted of three phases: 1) assembling and testing three new specialized curricula; 2) developing the web- based resources, and 3) integrating the assessment mechanism into the website.