Mentoring Barriers, Expected Outcomes, and Practices in Scientific Communication: Scale Development and Validation

Developing new scales to measure aspects of mentoring, including guidance in scientific communication (SciComm), is important to enhance success among trainees pursuing research careers in science and medicine. This study examined the psychometric properties of three new measures, based on social cognitive career theory (SCCT), as mentors address skills in scientific writing, oral presentation, and impromptu speaking. Faculty research mentors (N = 194) completed online questionnaires assessing perceptions of mentoring barriers in SciComm, outcome expectations, and practice behaviors in research and SciComm. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses rendered support for a 3-factor measure of barriers, 1-factor measure of expected outcomes, and a 5-factor measure of practices. Good support was also found for a path model that included the variables in the prediction of mentoring practices. Findings support applying SCCT to mentoring and clarify contextual barriers-choice outcome relations which can inform barrier-coping, SciComm interventions among mentors.