Investigation of Professional Coaching as an Intervention to Support the Success of URG Biomedical Ph.D. Students - PROJECT SUMMARY: Diversity improves the ability to conduct research in all fields, but is especially crucial
for biomedical research, essential to our efforts to improve the health of the nation. Despite decades of sustained
effort, fewer than 2 percent of NIH primary investigators are Black, lower than the percentage of Black faculty at
medical schools and much lower than the general population. The same holds true for Hispanics and other
underrepresented groups (URGs). New, inventive solutions are thus urgently needed to promote the
advancement of biomedical URGs trainees. Here we propose individualized professional coaching as a scalable
and effective intervention. Coaching is a practice where a professionally trained coach helps the coachee clarify
aspirations, increase self-awareness, establish plans, take action to achieve goals, and overcome challenges.
Coaching research in a number of different academic settings has demonstrated improved self-efficacy and
mental health, which are needed for sustained academic success. However, professional coaching has never
been rigorously tested as an intervention for biomedical Ph.D. students, which is a significant gap in knowledge.
Using hypothesis-driven research, we will test the following hypothesis: Biomedical Ph.D. students who receive
individualized academic coaching will experience improved short-term outcomes (e.g., self-efficacy, resilience,
reduced anxiety and depression) and sustained positive effects (degree persistence, goal attainment, ease in
career transitions, and tangible scholarly outputs) compared to their controls. An interdisciplinary team at Rutgers
with deep expertise in biomedical Ph.D. education and training, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), professional
coaching, mental health, biostatistics, and rigorous mixed-methods educational research will test this hypothesis
in the following three aims. For reproducibility, all experiments will be conducted at two institutions: Rutgers-New
Brunswick (R-NB) and Rutgers-Newark (R-N). The experiments will be an academic year (AY)-long and utilize
International Coaching Federation (ICF)-accredited coaches. URG and well-represented (WR) students will be
randomly assigned to either control (no coaching) or experimental groups (coaching). In Aim 1, validated
instruments will statistically measure short- and medium-term effects of professional coaching on goal
attainment, self-efficacy and mental health (anxiety, depression, resilience). As a complementary approach,
mixed methods will determine what gains occur, how they occur, and for what student populations they are most
pronounced. Our hypothesis will be first tested at R-NB and then at R-N. In Aim 2, the coaching elements that
lead to success will be defined including: i) dosage (frequency, duration) and ii) efficacy of Rutgers faculty/staff
trained as ICF coaches. In Aim 3, long-term effects will be measured (e.g., time to degree, career transition, self-
efficacy, and resilience). The proposed innovative research will have high impact by not only testing for the first
time whether coaching is an efficacious and scalable intervention, but by also identifying the key elements
needed for its implementation across institutions to address ongoing URG disparities in the workforce.
