Does Race/Ethnicity Matter? Exploring the Relationship Between Mentor Functions and Self-Efficacy Among Female Faculty in Academic Medicine.

Abstract

The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate the relationship between mentor functions and self-efficacy for women and underrepresented minority women in academic medicine. The data for this thesis was drawn from existing survey data collected from the research study, titled Women and Inclusion in Academic Medicine (WIAM), which was conducted at 13 medical schools in the United States, and Puerto Rico. There were 8,041 female faculty who participated in the online survey. The survey included many validated measures, specific items that were used for analysis in this thesis were from the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995) and Dreher and Ash’s (1990) Organizational Mentoring Questionnaire. Participants who had a current mentor and an academic rank of instructor or higher were included in the analysis of this thesis (n=1,176).

Based on previous research, Hypothesis 1 was there would be a positive association between the mentor functions, career functions and psychosocial functions, and self-efficacy, but the career functions would have a stronger relationship with self-efficacy than psychosocial functions and self-efficacy. The results of the multiple regression analysis indicated that there was a positive relationship between self-efficacy and both psychosocial functions (b=0.07, p=0.001) and career functions (b=0.03, p=0.140), however psychosocial functions showed a stronger and significant relationship with self-efficacy than did career functions and self-efficacy. It was also hypothesized that race/ethnicity would have a moderating effect on the association between the mentor functions and self-efficacy. For non-Hispanic black faculty, race/ethnicity showed a moderating effect for psychosocial functions and self-efficacy.

The findings from the first hypothesis suggest that mentoring is associated with self-efficacy, however the causal relationship between mentor functions and self-efficacy has yet to be determined. The analysis showed that the strength of the relationship between career functions and psychosocial functions and self-efficacy varied, but the findings of this and previous studies suggest that both mentor functions are important for self-efficacy. Through the second hypothesis, the results of the interaction indicate that race/ethnicity and mentoring effect self-efficacy differently when compared across race/ethnicity groups.