Mentoring Award: Importance, Availability and Association With Mentoring Outcomes

Abstract

Intrinsic and extrinsic awards may motivate mentors and thus strengthen the organizational mentoring climate (OMC). Several institutions offer extrinsic awards for mentoring to recognize exceptional mentorship by individuals who support junior faculty in their career development. Mentees, peers, or institutions may nominate mentors for these awards. However, the faculty’s perception of the importance of these awards and the association between their availability and mentoring outcomes remain unclear. We conducted secondary data analysis of a cross-sectional survey of 298 individuals (5%) from a pool of 6,152 faculty from the University of New Mexico (Main Campus and Health Sciences Center) and Arizona State University. The mentoring award’s importance to faculty subgroups and the relationship of its perceived availability with providing/receiving and confidence in mentoring was determined. Participants completed the online OMC importance and availability draft scales, containing one item each on the award. Of all participants, 60.4% rated an award as very or somewhat important. Only 7% reported award availability (reaching 19% for ASU faculty). Women and Hispanic faculty rated the award as more important than their respective counterparts. Although availability was not associated with providing mentorship, faculty reporting unavailability were less likely to be receiving mentorship than others. Mean self-reported confidence in mentoring was higher among those reporting availability than in other groups. University faculty, particularly women and Hispanic, rate a mentoring award as important, yet few report their availability. Although availability is not associated with providing mentorship, it is associated with receiving mentorship and confidence in mentoring. The study’s cross-sectional nature, low participation rate, and inability to independently confirm award availability limit its findings. Organizations need to establish and raise awareness of a faculty mentorship award as part of efforts to strengthen the OMC.

Literature Review

A lack of mentors constitutes the single most cited institutional barrier to research success for junior investigators, women, and/or underrepresented minority faculty in health sciences (Ransdell et al., 2021). The lack of mentors at academic health centers parallels the decreasing number of faculty, particularly physician faculty, choosing careers in research (Burnham et al., 2011). Mentoring is a time-consuming activity and mentors deserve more credit, recognition and support than they currently get. As recommended in a 2011 report by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH), Clinical and Translational Science Awards National Mentor Working Group, organizational strategies used to support research mentors include monetary support, access to core laboratories and other services, assistance with grant and manuscript preparation, membership in mentor academies, mentor peer support, mentor training, mentor recognition and awards, and promotion (Figure 1)(Burnham et al., 2011)).While there is limited empirical information on the effectiveness of mentor support and incentive strategies, recognition and support of mentoring efforts by one’s home institution and/or peers or mentees may provide a catalyst to encourage mentoring by faculty members. It may also ensure that mentors spend the requisite time in mentoring and may be critical to expanding the available pool of mentors (Burnham et al., 2011). Mentoring awards may serve as an external contingency to retain mentors and to facilitate their sense of self efficacy from within, and may help reduce the ‘transaction cost’ of participating in mentoring. Additionally, these strategies may strengthen the organizational mentoring climate (OMC), defined as the shared perceptions of and the meaning attached to the mentoring policies, practice, and procedures employees experience and the behaviors they observe that are supported, expected, or rewarded (Schneider et al., 2013; Tigges et al., 2020). Several institutions offer extrinsic awards for mentoring to recognize exemplary mentorship by those who support junior faculty in their career development. Mentees, peers, or institutions may nominate mentors for these awards. However, the importance, availability and positive impact of these awards has not been evaluated. The mentoring award’s perceived importance and availability to faculty subgroups and the relationship of its perceived availability with mentoring outcomes at academic centers was determined in this study.

Figure 1.

Organizational Strategies to Support Research Mentors

Content

Methods

Study Design and Sample

This study was a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional study of OMC involving a sample of 298 respondents from an invited group of 6,152 faculty, 3,195 from the University of New Mexico (UNM Main Campus, Health Sciences Center [HSC], and branch campuses) and 2,957 from Arizona State University (ASU, a non-HSC campus) (Tigges et al., 2020). The study objectives were to evaluate the importance rating of a mentoring award by various faculty subgroups (research question or RQ1), perception of award availability by various faculty subgroups (RQ2), and the association between perceived availability of the award and mentoring outcomes (RQ3).

Procedures

After creating email distribution lists using faculty rosters from all institutions with permission from the appropriate institutional faculty and review board offices, email invitations were sent to all faculty to participate in the structured, online Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) survey (Harris et al., 2009). Additional detail about the recruitment of the study population has been previously published (Tigges et al., 2020). As approved by the UNM Institutional Review Board (HRPO 18–261), participation in the study was voluntary. The study participants completed the online organizational mentoring climate importance (OMCI) and availability (OMCA) draft scales, which included one item each on mentoring award (Sood, 2021; Tigges et al., 2020).

Outcome Variables

The outcome (dependent variable) for RQ1 was the perceived importance of the mentoring award. Faculty were asked to rate how important they think an annual award for excellence in mentorship to a faculty member is to mentoring success, in general, at any institution. Importance variables were measured using a 5-point Likert scale: (1) very important, (2) somewhat important, (3) neither important or unimportant, (4) somewhat unimportant, and (5) very unimportant.

The outcome (dependent variable) for RQ2 was the availability of a mentoring award, worded as: My college/department/division offers an annual award for excellence in mentorship to a faculty member. Response options were yes, no, and don’t know.

The outcomes (dependent variables) for RQ3 (which evaluates the association between perceived availability of the award and mentoring outcomes) included:

1. reported self-efficacy in mentoring another faculty member, with ratings ranging from (0) not confident, to (100) highly confident;

2. faculty reporting receiving mentorship, with response options (1) yes or (0) no;

3. faculty reporting providing mentorship to another faculty with response options (1) yes or (0) no.

Predictor Variables

The predictors (independent variables) for RQ1 and RQ2 included characteristics of faculty participants (such as University appointment, College/School appointment, years of work in a faculty role ≥ 10 years, current faculty track, current faculty rank, gender, race, and ethnicity, providing mentorship, and receiving mentorship). The predictor (independent variable) for RQ3 was the availability of a mentoring award (see above.

Statistical Approach

Predictor variables for RQ1 and RQ2 were categorical variables. The outcome variable for RQ1 was an interval-level variable. For binary categorical predictor variables, Wilcoxon nonparametric test was employed. For predictor variables that were not binary, Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric test was used. For RQ2 and RQ3 chi-square and Fishers’ exact test (if small frequencies) were used when both predictors and outcomes were categorical variables. One-way ANOVA with Sidak adjustment for multiple comparisons was used for RQ3 for the continuous outcome variable, self-efficacy. A p value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results

Among those invited, 616 (10%) faculty returned their surveys; 355 (6%) had complete data (defined as answering at least one item near the end of the survey). We excluded 30 participants with missing basic demographic data (gender, rank, university appointment, or mentoring/mentored), 23 flex and research track faculty, and two missing a third or more of the climate item responses. This exclusion strategy yielded a final sample size of 298 participants (5%) for comparative analyses. Most participants were from the University of New Mexico HSC, women, tenure-track, non-Hispanic White, and senior (i.e., Associate Professor or Professor) with at least ten years’ experience as faculty. Most participants were not receiving or providing mentorship.

Participants rated the mean importance of an award for excellence in mentoring as 2.4 ± 1.2 (SD), with 60.4% rating it as very or somewhat important. Only 16.1% of the participants rated the award as not important. RQ1 evaluated whether faculty subgroups have differing perceptions of the importance of a mentoring award. Women and Hispanic faculty perceived an award as more important than men and non-Hispanic faculty, respectively (p<0.05 for both analyses; Table 1).

Table 1.

Comparison of the Perceived Importance of an Award for Excellence in Mentoring Among Various Faculty Subgroups (RQ1)

Faculty subgroup	Importance score			p-value
	N	Mean	SD
Faculty Term (in years)
No answer	3	2.0	1.0
<10	118	2.4	1.1	0.93
≥10	177	2.4	1.2
Gender
Male	99	2.5	1.0	0.048
Female	199	2.3	1.2
Rank
Instructor	49	2.3	1.2	0.78
Assistant Professor	72	2.5	1.2
Associate Professor	89	2.3	1.1
Professor	88	2.4	1.1
Track
Tenure track	175	2.4	1.2	0.91
Clinical Educator track	72	2.4	1.1
Lecturer/Instructor/Educator track	51	2.3	1.2
Ethnicity
No answer	10	2.4	1.6
Hispanic	40	2.1	1.1	0.047
Non-Hispanic	248	2.4	1.1
Race/Ethnicity
Non-Hispanic White	219	2.4	1.1	0.13
Hispanic	40	2.1	1.1
All others	39	2.5	1.3
Providing mentorship
No	170	2.3	1.2	0.58
Yes	128	2.4	1.1
Receiving mentorship
No	226	2.4	1.2	0.97
Yes	72	2.4	1.2
Primary university appointment
UNM HSC Campus	134	2.3	1.0	0.75
UNM Main Campus	94	2.4	1.2
ASU Campus	70	2.3	1.3

Note 1: The importance of mentoring award is rated as 1–5 from very important to very unimportant. A lower score indicates greater importance.

Note 2: Nonparametric Wilcoxon tests (2 groups) and Kruskal-Wallis tests (>2 groups) were used for analyses. ‘No answer’ categories were excluded from analyses. Bold p-values indicates p < 0.05.

Few faculty reported award availability (7%), and many reported a lack of knowledge (“don’t know”) of availability (23%, row percentages, Table 2). However, the reported award availability was not associated with the perceived award importance (p=0.55). RQ2 was: Are there differences in how different faculty subgroups perceive the availability of a mentoring award? ASU faculty were more likely to report availability (19%) than UNM HSC (4%) and Main campus (1%), respectively (p< 0.001; row percentages, Table 2). Faculty reporting a lack of knowledge of availability were less likely to have been employed for a longer term (45%) than those reporting either availability (55%) or unavailability (65%; p = 0.02; column percentages, Table 2). In addition, 70% of the faculty reporting availability were on a tenure track, a significantly higher number than those reporting unavailability (63%) or lack of knowledge (42%; p = 0.03; column percentages, Table 2).

Table 2.

Association between the availability of award and mentoring outcomes and other characteristics (RQ2 and RQ3)

Characteristic	My college/school/department/division offers an annual award for excellence in mentorship to a faculty member.
	Yes			No			Don’t know
	N	col%	row%	N	col%	row%	N	col%	row%	p-value
All	20	100	7	209	100	70	69	100	23
Providing mentorship
No	9	45	5	115	55	68	46	67	27	0.13
Yes	11	55	9	94	45	73	23	33	18
Receiving mentorship
No	14	70	6	168	80	74	44	64	19	0.02
Yes	6	30	8	41	20	57	25	36	35
Primary university appointment
UNM HSC Campus	6	30	4	87	42	65	41	59	31	<0.001
UNM Main Campus	1	5	1	75	36	80	18	26	19
ASU Campus	13	65	19	47	22	67	10	14	14
Faculty term in years
No answer	0	0	0	2	1	67	1	1	33
<10	9	45	8	72	34	61	37	54	31	0.02
≥10	11	55	6	135	65	76	31	45	18
Gender
Male	8	40	8	68	33	69	23	33	23	0.80
Female	12	60	6	141	67	71	46	67	23
Rank
Instructor	2	10	4	29	14	59	18	26	37	0.10
Assistant Professor	5	25	7	46	22	64	21	30	29
Associate Professor	7	35	8	67	32	75	15	22	17
Professor	6	30	7	67	32	76	15	22	17
Track
Tenure track	14	70	8	132	63	75	29	42	17	0.03
Clinical Educator track	4	20	6	46	22	64	22	32	31
Lecturer/Instructor/Educator track	2	10	4	31	15	61	18	26	35
Ethnicity
No answer	.	.	.	9	4	90	1	1	10
Hispanic	2	10	5	30	14	75	8	12	20	0.70
Non-Hispanic	18	90	7	170	81	69	60	87	24
Race/Ethnicity
Non-Hispanic White	16	80	7	153	73	70	50	72	23	0.92
Hispanic	2	10	5	30	14	75	8	12	20
All others	2	10	5	26	12	67	11	16	28
	N	Mean	SD	N	Mean	SD	N	Mean	SD	p-value
Degree of confidence in successfully mentoring another faculty member (scale 0–100)	20	75.8	18.9	203	70.4	23.5	68	60.9	28.0	0.03

Note 1: Chi-square tests were used, and Fisher’s exact test if small cell frequencies for categorical outcome variables. Mentoring confidence was evaluated with one-way ANOVA with Sidak adjustment for multiple comparisons. Bold p-values indicates p < 0.05

RQ3 examined the association between the perceived availability of a mentoring award and mentoring outcomes. Table 2 shows that there was no association between availability and providing mentorship (p=0.13). Faculty reporting unavailability were less likely to be receiving mentorship (20%) than those reporting availability (30%) or lack of knowledge (36%; p=0.02; column percentage, Table 2). On the other hand, mean self-reported confidence in mentoring another faculty member was higher among those reporting availability (75.8 ± 18.9) than those reporting unavailability (70.4 ± 23.5) or lack of knowledge (60.9 ± 28.0; p= 0.03).

Discussion

University faculty, particularly women and Hispanic, rate mentoring awards as important. Yet, few faculty report award availability, which also varies across institutions. Although award availability is not associated with faculty providing mentorship, it is associated with receiving mentorship and confidence in mentoring another faculty member.

Based on the 2021 report by the American Association Of Medical Colleges, 43.4% of all full-time faculty at U.S. medical schools were women (American Association Of Medical Colleges, 2022). Although the proportion of women in all faculty ranks has increased since 2009, women continue to represent a majority only at the instructor level (56.2%). While the struggle for gender equity in science remains under debate, it is clear that many women faculty have been a driving force in scientific advancement and leadership. The disproportionate importance of mentoring awards by women faculty may reflect their perception of inadequate recognition given to women mentors (AlShebli et al., 2020; Mekahli, 2021). Similar considerations may apply to Hispanic faculty who remain underrepresented in the academic workforce, constituting 3.0% of all U.S. medical school faculty in 2021 (American Association Of Medical Colleges, 2022), despite constituting 18.7% of the U.S. population in the 2020 Census. Valuing and recognizing the mentoring efforts of women and Hispanic faculty will empower them and help change the OMC.

The low rate of award availability is consistent with the generally low level of support provided by institutions to mentors. Tigges and colleagues (2020) reported generally low availability of many structures, programs, and policies that define an OMC. While most mentors are internally motivated, mentoring may be burdensome, often requiring an upfront investment by the mentor to help the mentee reach his or her full potential. The time and energy investment, particularly in the initial phase, may detract from a mentor’s own research program, personal activities, and family time. There is, therefore, a pressing need for institutions to address the support, recognition, and award system for mentors. Additionally, the large proportion of faculty who do not know of award availability indicate that establishing award systems may be insufficient by themselves and raising awareness about them is important in strengthening the OMC.

Many universities, journals, and professional organizations offer awards that recognize efforts to mentor trainees and colleagues, particularly women and URM. Although these awards provide recognition, prestige, and opportunity for career advancement and networking to individual faculty (Zhang et al., 2021), there exists limited empirical information on their perceived effectiveness by faculty groups. In the absence of longitudinal data or controlled trials, the effectiveness of mentoring awards on mentoring outcomes cannot be firmly established. However, the current study indicates that the perceived availability of mentoring awards is significantly associated with two of the three desirable mentoring outcomes, i.e., receiving mentorship and confidence in mentoring. The current study, thus, generates crucial preliminary data for the use of mentoring awards in improving the OMC.

The strengths of the study relate to the involvement of three research institutions of higher education in New Mexico and Arizona, with high rates of women and Hispanic faculty members. The study’s limitations stem from the low overall participation rates and the absence of participant organizations from outside the Southwestern United States. Furthermore, the study did not seek to evaluate the accuracy of individual faculty’s perceptions of availability; therefore, it is unknown whether mentoring awards are truly unavailable or whether faculty just do not know about them. Either way, this would represent a potential OMC weakness that organizational leaders might like to address. This study does not address intrinsic awards that may motivate mentors, such as the desire to build a legacy or give back to the next generation, opportunity to strengthen the mentors’ networks or list of accomplishments by taking advantage of joint scholarship, or advancing broadly the joint field of research. It is possible that intrinsic awards, which are more difficult to measure and track, may be more important to mentors than extrinsic mentoring awards. Finally, the study’s cross-sectional nature does not allow a causal relationship to be established between mentoring awards and outcomes.

Conclusions

Mentors need to be able to maintain their own scholarship programs and participate in teaching, clinical, and leadership activities, while training the next generation. This is no easy task! The findings of this small study suggest that organizations should consider establishing and raising awareness of faculty mentorship awards as a step to improve the OMC. However, mentor awards alone may be insufficient and should be combined with other OMC enhancing strategies to support and increase the number of mentors, thereby addressing the most frequently mentioned institutional barrier to faculty mentoring.