Mentoring
Mentoring young female academics is seen as one measure to increase the number of women in academia. However, testing if mentoring does have causal effects on a higher share of women in academia is difficult. The literature review of Meschitti & Lawton-Smith shows by reviewing more than 60 papers on the topic that the number of studies being able to assess this is very limited and the studies presented have several weaknesses. Also Laver et al in a review study encompassing mainly mentoring, professional development and networking programs find mixed effects.
However, final results from a field experiment in economics (Ginther et al.) suggest, that mentoring in economics might be successful. Also, a recent study by Chang et al. in academic medicine shows positive results. However, still, it is difficult to conclude with a final judgment on mentoring programs in academia.
The paper reviews literature on mentoring in academia, with a focus on mentoring to enhance women’s careers. A significant gender imbalance in science persists, and mentoring has been recognized as an important instrument for fostering academic women’s careers and addressing such imbalance. However, often the benefits of mentoring are taken for granted. The review shows that there are some problems. The theoretical background of the studies is sometimes quite poor, mentoring is often confused with supervision, studies are usually interested in investigating the effects for the mentee and rely on self-reported measures; impact on the mentors, the role of group mentoring, and mentoring as an instrument to change institutions is less often the focus of the studies. Finally, there are few longitudinal research studies.
Laver, K. E., Prichard, I. J., Cations, M., Osenk, I., Govin, K., & Coveney, J. D. (2018). A systematic review of interventions to support the careers of women in academic medicine and other disciplines. BMJ open, 8(3).
Review (n=18) on quantitative evaluations of interventions designed to support the careers of women in academia of any discipline. A systematic search of English entries in PubMed, CINAHL and Google Scholar was conducted in September 2017. Methodological quality of the studies was independently assessed by two authors using the Joanna Briggs Institute quality appraisal checklists. Meta-analysis was not possible due to heterogeneity in methods and outcomes; results were synthesised and displayed narratively. Eighteen eligible studies were identified, mostly evaluating programmes in academic medicine departments. The most common interventions were mentoring, education, professional development and/or networking programmes. All programmes took a ‘bottom-up’ approach in that women were responsible for opting into and devoting time to participation. Study quality was low overall, but all studies reported positive outcomes on at least one indicator. Most often this included improvements in self-rated skills and capabilities, or satisfaction with the programme offered. Results regarding tangible outcomes were mixed; while some studies noted improvements in promotion, retention and remuneration, others did not. The review suggests that targeted programmes have the potential to improve some outcomes for women in academia. However, the studies provide limited high-quality evidence to provide information for academic institutions in terms of the best way to improve outcomes for women in academia. The success of an intervention appears to be undermined when it relies on the additional labour of those it is intending to support (ie, ‘bottom-up’ approaches). As such, academic institutions should consider and evaluate the efficacy of ‘top-down’ interventions that start with change in practice of higher management.
This study is the longer term outcome of the Blau 2010 report. It evaluates differences between the treatment and control groups in tenure status and academic employment as well as publications and grants. The dataset covers all six cohorts of randomized program participants. Individuals are observed for 4 to 14 years post intervention depending on cohort, enabling us to investigate longer-run outcomes for a reasonably large sample. Since the authors are primarily interested in tenure, they keep all those who, as of the fall of 2018, have been observed for seven or more years since receiving their PhD. Results indicate that relative to women in the control group, treated women are more likely to stay in academia and have received tenure in an institution ranked in the top 30 or 50 in economics in the world.
US study using Association of American Medical Colleges data to compare 3268 women attending career development programs (CDPs) from 1988 to 2008 with 17,834 women and 40,319 men nonparticipant faculty similar to CDP participants in degree, academic rank, first year of appointment in rank, and home institution. Measuring from first year in rank to departure from last position held or December 2009 (study end date), the authors used Kaplan–Meier curves; Cox survival analysis adjusted for age, degree, tenure, and department; and 10-year rates to compare retention. CDP participants were significantly less likely to leave academic medicine than their peers for up to 8 years after appointment as Assistant and Associate Professors. Full Professor participants were significantly less likely to leave than non-CDP women. Men left less often than non-CDP women at every rank. Participants attending more than one CDP left less often than those attending one, but results varied by rank. Patterns of switching institutions after 10 years varied by rank; CDP participants switched significantly less often than men at Assistant and Associate Professor levels and significantly less often than non-CDP women among Assistant Professors. Full Professors switched at equal rates. The authors therefore conclude that national CDPs appear to offer retention advantage to women faculty, with implications for faculty performance and capacity building within academic medicine. Intervals of retention advantage for CDP participants suggest vulnerable periods for intervention.
Mouganie, P., & Canaan, S. (2020). Female science advisors and the STEM gender gap.
Study at the American University of Beirut (n=3,409) assessing how mentor gender influences women’s STEM participation. To reduce the gender gap in science fields, policymakers often propose providing women with mentoring by female scientists. However, there is no clear evidence on whether one-on-one mentor gender influences women’s STEM participation. The authors exploit a unique setting where students are randomly assigned to academic advisors—who are also faculty members—in their freshman year of college. Advisors help students select courses and decide on a major. They find that having a female rather than a male science advisor substantially increases the likelihood that women enroll and graduate with STEM degrees. A non-science advisor’s gender has no impact on students’ major choice.
A highly debated paper was published in late 2020, it is now retracted:
AlShebli, B., Makovi, K., & Rahwan, T. (2020). The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature communications, 11(1), 1-8.
Bibliography study that looks at (215 million scientists and 222 million papers) looking at informal mentorship whereby juniors are mentored by multiple senior colleagues without them necessarily having formal supervisory roles. The authors study mentorship in scientific collaborations, where a junior scientist is supported by potentially multiple senior collaborators, without them necessarily having formal supervisory roles. The paper identifies 3 million mentor–protégé pairs and survey a random sample, verifying that their relationship involved some form of mentorship. The authors find that mentorship quality predicts the scientific impact of the papers written by protégés post mentorship without their mentors. Furtherore, they also find that increasing the proportion of female mentors is associated not only with a reduction in post-mentorship impact of female protégés, but also a reduction in the gain of female mentors. While current diversity policies encourage same-gender mentorships to retain women in academia, th authors coclude that their findings raise the possibility that opposite-gender mentorship may actually increase the impact of women who pursue a scientific career.