Tuma Trevor T, Fedesco Heather N, Rosenzweig Emily Q, Chen Xiao-Yin, Dolan Erin L
bioRxiv. 2024 Oct 28:2024.10.25.620232. doi: 10.1101/2024.10.25.620232.
Science doctoral students can experience negative interactions with faculty mentors and internalize these experiences, potentially leading to self-blame and undermining their research self-efficacy. Helping students perceive these interactions adaptively may protect their research self-efficacy and maintain functional mentoring relationships. We conducted a pre-registered, longitudinal field experiment of a novel perspective-getting intervention combined with attribution retraining to help students avoid self-blame and preserve research self-efficacy. Science doctoral students ( = 155) were randomly assigned to read about mentor perspectives on negative interactions (i.e., Perspective-getting Condition) or about mentoring with no mentor perspective (i.e., control condition). Contrary to our hypotheses, we found no main effects of the intervention on students' self-blame or research self-efficacy. However, for students with lower pre-intervention mentorship relationship satisfaction, the intervention preserved research self-efficacy six months later. This study provides evidence that perspective getting may be protective for students who are most in need of relationship intervention.
Effective mentoring relationships are fundamental for promoting the success of doctoral students in science, yet not all mentoring relationships are high quality. This study assessed the effectiveness of a brief perspective-getting intervention (where students are given the perspective of what it is like to be a research mentor) that aimed to protect science doctoral students from blaming themselves for negative interactions with faculty mentors and maintain their research self-efficacy. Results showed that on average across all students, the intervention did not affect students' self-blame for negative interactions or their research self-efficacy. However, the intervention did help students with less satisfying mentoring relationships maintain their self-efficacy. Thus, perspective-getting shows some promise for protecting science doctoral students from harm that can be caused by negative interactions with faculty mentors.
理科博士生可能会经历与导师的负面互动，并将这些经历内化，这可能导致自责并削弱他们的研究自我效能感。帮助学生以适应性的方式看待这些互动，可能会保护他们的研究自我效能感，并维持有效的指导关系。我们进行了一项预先注册的纵向实地实验，采用一种新颖的换位思考干预措施，并结合归因再训练，以帮助学生避免自责并保持研究自我效能感。理科博士生（n = 155）被随机分配阅读关于导师对负面互动的看法（即换位思考条件）或关于没有导师视角的指导（即控制条件）。与我们的假设相反，我们发现该干预对学生的自责或研究自我效能感没有主要影响。然而，对于干预前指导关系满意度较低的学生，该干预在六个月后保持了他们的研究自我效能感。这项研究提供了证据，表明换位思考可能对最需要关系干预的学生具有保护作用。
有效的指导关系是促进理科博士生成功的基础，但并非所有指导关系都是高质量的。本研究评估了一种简短的换位思考干预措施（让学生了解作为研究导师的感受）的有效性，该措施旨在保护理科博士生不因与教师导师的负面互动而自责，并维持他们的研究自我效能感。结果表明，在所有学生中，平均而言，该干预并未影响学生对负面互动的自责或他们的研究自我效能感。然而，该干预确实帮助指导关系不太满意的学生维持了他们的自我效能感。因此，换位思考对于保护理科博士生免受与教师导师的负面互动可能造成的伤害显示出了一些希望。
