Pilot study of an intervention to increase cultural awareness in research mentoring: Implications for diversifying the scientific workforce

INTRODUCTION: Innovative evidence-based interventions are needed to equip research mentors with skills to address cultural diversity within research mentoring relationships. A pilot study assessed initial outcomes of a culturally tailored effort to create and disseminate a novel intervention titled Culturally Aware Mentoring (CAM) for research mentors. INTERVENTION: Intervention development resulted in 4 products: a 6 hour CAM training curriculum, a facilitator guide, an online pretraining module, and metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of CAM training. METHOD: Participants were 64 research mentors from 3 US research-intensive universities. Quantitative pretraining and posttraining evaluation survey data were collected. RESULTS: Participants found high value and satisfaction with the CAM training, reported gains in personal cultural awareness and cultural skills, and increased intentions and confidence to address cultural diversity in their mentoring. CONCLUSIONS: Study findings indicate that the CAM training holds promise to build research mentors’ capacity and confidence to engage directly with racial/ethnic topics in research mentoring relationships.