Vanderford Nathan L, Evans Teresa M, Weiss L Todd, Bira Lindsay, Beltran-Gastelum Jazmin
Department of Toxicology & Cancer Biology, University of Kentucky, College of Medicine, 800 Rose Street, KY, USA.
Markey Cancer Center, University of Kentucky, 800 Rose Street, KY, USA.
F1000Res. 2018 Jul 25;7:1132. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.15610.2. eCollection 2018.
The individual development plan (IDP) is a career planning tool that aims to assist PhD trainees in self-assessing skills, exploring career paths, developing short- and long-term career goals, and creating action plans to achieve those goals. The National Institutes of Health and many academic institutions have created policies that mandate completion of the IDP by both graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Despite these policies, little information exists regarding how widely the tool is used and whether it is useful to the career development of PhD trainees. Herein, we present data from a multi-institutional, online survey on the use and effectiveness of the IDP among a group of 183 postdoctoral researchers. The overall IDP completion rate was 54% and 38% of IDP users reported that the tool was helpful to their career development. Positive relationships with one's advisor, confidence regarding completing training, trainees' confidence about their post-training career, and a positive experience with institutional career development resources are associated with respondents' perception that the IDP is useful for their career development. We suggest that there is a need to further understand the nuanced use and effectiveness of the IDP in order to determine how to execute the use of the tool to maximize trainees' career development.
个人发展计划（IDP）是一种职业规划工具，旨在帮助博士生自我评估技能、探索职业道路、制定短期和长期职业目标，并制定实现这些目标的行动计划。美国国立卫生研究院和许多学术机构都制定了政策，要求研究生和博士后研究人员完成个人发展计划。尽管有这些政策，但关于该工具的使用范围以及它对博士生职业发展是否有用的信息却很少。在此，我们展示了一项针对183名博士后研究人员的多机构在线调查数据，该调查涉及个人发展计划的使用情况及其有效性。个人发展计划的总体完成率为54%，38%的使用者表示该工具对他们的职业发展有帮助。与导师的积极关系、对完成培训的信心、学员对培训后职业的信心，以及在机构职业发展资源方面的积极体验，都与受访者认为个人发展计划对其职业发展有用的看法相关。我们建议有必要进一步了解个人发展计划的细微使用情况和有效性，以便确定如何使用该工具来最大限度地促进学员的职业发展。
