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Methods of Academic Course Planning for Cancer Biology PhD Students to Enhance Knowledge of Clinical Oncology.

ABSTRACT: Little is known about how clinical oncology concepts are taught to PhD students or the most effective methods of doing so. In this study, electronic surveys were sent to faculty and students at PhD training programs, assessing their institution's methods of clinical oncology education and their perspective on optimal approaches to clinical oncology education. Only 40.0% of students reported any clinical oncology component to their institution's training, and only 26.5% had a clinician on their graduate advisory committee. Forty-three percent of students believed that they had a good understanding for translating basic science research into clinical practice, and 77.2% of all participants believed dual degree MD/PhD students were superior to PhD students in this regard. Lectures on clinical oncology research topics were the most valuable type of experience for all participants and were also the most common type of experience utilized. Working with a clinician to develop a clinical trial with correlative endpoints was also highly valued, but was only utilized by approximately 10% of programs. Faculty rated the value of nearly all types of clinical oncology exposure significantly lower than did students. Inclusion of the approaches identified in this study is likely to enhance PhD training in oncology-related disciplines. Cancer Res; 77(18); 4741-4. ©2017 AACR.

SUBMITTER: Mattes MD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5821268 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Methods of Academic Course Planning for Cancer Biology PhD Students to Enhance Knowledge of Clinical Oncology.

Mattes Malcolm D MD Swart Elizabeth E Markwell Steven M SM Wen Sijin S Vona-Davis Linda C LC

Cancer research 20170720 18

Little is known about how clinical oncology concepts are taught to PhD students or the most effective methods of doing so. In this study, electronic surveys were sent to faculty and students at PhD training programs, assessing their institution's methods of clinical oncology education and their perspective on optimal approaches to clinical oncology education. Only 40.0% of students reported any clinical oncology component to their institution's training, and only 26.5% had a clinician on their g ...[more]

PMID: 28729414

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Project description:Research indicates that increasing diversity in doctoral programs can positively affect students' academic success. However, little research examines students' responses to female scholars' representation. The two studies presented here examine how students' exposure to female academic role models shapes students' attitudes toward their own academic success (i.e. self-efficacy). Such attitudes are critical because they predict student retention rates. In our first study, we randomly exposed 297 Ph.D. students in one academic discipline to either a gender-diverse (i.e. 30% female authors) or non-diverse syllabus in research methods (i.e. 10% female authors). We examined the effect of the intervention on students' perceived likelihood of succeeding in the hypothetical course. Contrary to expectations derived from the literature, we found that increasing women's representation in syllabi did not affect female students' self-efficacy. Rather, male students expressed lower self-efficacy when evaluating the more gender-diverse syllabus. We also found that students' attitudes toward diversity in academia predicted their reactions more strongly than did their own gender: gender-diverse syllabi reduced self-efficacy among those students unsupportive of diversity. In our second study, we analyzed non-interventional survey questions to examine the relationship between female role models and long-term academic self-efficacy. Analysis was observational and thus did not assess causality. We found that students with more role models have higher academic self-efficacy, irrespective of student and role model gender. Nonetheless, results also suggested that some students actively seek female role models: namely, female students, and particularly those valuing diversity. Our results ultimately suggest that exposure to female role models relates in surprising ways to Ph.D. students' self-efficacy. Having more female role models correlates with greater expectations of academic success among certain groups of students, but with diminished expectations of academic success among other groups.

Dataset Information

Methods of Academic Course Planning for Cancer Biology PhD Students to Enhance Knowledge of Clinical Oncology.

Publications

Methods of Academic Course Planning for Cancer Biology PhD Students to Enhance Knowledge of Clinical Oncology.

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