Postdocs' lab engagement predicts trajectories of PhD students' skill development.

ABSTRACT: The doctoral advisor-typically the principal investigator (PI)-is often characterized as a singular or primary mentor who guides students using a cognitive apprenticeship model. Alternatively, the "cascading mentorship" model describes the members of laboratories or research groups receiving mentorship from more senior laboratory members and providing it to more junior members (i.e., PIs mentor postdocs, postdocs mentor senior graduate students, senior students mentor junior students, etc.). Here we show that PIs' laboratory and mentoring activities do not significantly predict students' skill development trajectories, but the engagement of postdocs and senior graduate students in laboratory interactions do. We found that the cascading mentorship model accounts best for doctoral student sk

SUBMITTER: Feldon DF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6800364 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature