University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth, MN 55812, USA.
CBE Life Sci Educ. 2013 Fall;12(3):403-9. doi: 10.1187/cbe.13-02-0043.
Successfully recruiting students from underrepresented groups to pursue biomedical science research careers continues to be a challenge. Early exposure to scientific research is often cited as a powerful means to attract research scholars with the research mentor being critical in facilitating the development of an individual's science identity and career; however, most mentors in the biological sciences have had little formal training in working with research mentees. To better understand mentors' experiences working with undergraduates in the laboratory, we conducted semistructured interviews with 15 research mentors at a public university in the Midwest. The interviewed mentors were part of a program designed to increase the number of American Indians pursuing biomedical/biobehavioral research careers and represented a broad array of perspectives, including equal representation of male and female mentors, mentors from underrepresented groups, mentors at different levels of their careers, and mentors from undergraduate and professional school departments. The mentors identified benefits and challenges in being an effective mentor. We also explored what the term underrepresented means to the mentors and discovered that most of the mentors had an incomplete understanding about how differences in culture could contribute to underrepresented students' experience in the laboratory. Our interviews identify issues relevant to designing programs and courses focused on undergraduate student research.
成功招募代表性不足群体的学生从事生物医学科学研究工作仍然是一个挑战。早期接触科学研究通常被认为是吸引研究学者的有力手段，研究导师在促进个人的科学身份和职业发展方面至关重要；然而，大多数生物学科学领域的导师在与研究学员合作方面几乎没有接受过正式培训。为了更好地了解导师在实验室中与本科生合作的经验，我们在中西部的一所公立大学对 15 名研究导师进行了半结构化访谈。接受采访的导师是旨在增加从事生物医学/生物行为研究职业的美国印第安人的人数的计划的一部分，代表了广泛的观点，包括男女导师的平等代表、代表性不足群体的导师、处于不同职业阶段的导师，以及来自本科和专业学校系的导师。导师们确定了成为有效导师的好处和挑战。我们还探讨了“代表性不足”一词对导师的含义，发现大多数导师对文化差异如何影响代表性不足学生的实验室体验缺乏完整的理解。我们的访谈确定了与设计专注于本科生研究的项目和课程相关的问题。
