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Biosciences Proposal Bootcamp: Structured peer and faculty feedback improves trainees' proposals and grantsmanship self-efficacy.

ABSTRACT: Grant writing is an essential skill to develop for academic and other career success but providing individual feedback to large numbers of trainees is challenging. In 2014, we launched the Stanford Biosciences Grant Writing Academy to support graduate students and postdocs in writing research proposals. Its core program is a multi-week Proposal Bootcamp designed to increase the feedback writers receive as they develop and refine their proposals. The Proposal Bootcamp consisted of two-hour weekly meetings that included mini lectures and peer review. Bootcamp participants also attended faculty review workshops to obtain faculty feedback. Postdoctoral trainees were trained and hired as course teaching assistants and facilitated weekly meetings and review workshops. Over the last six years, the annual Bootcamp has provided 525 doctoral students and postdocs with multi-level feedback (peer and faculty). Proposals from Bootcamp participants were almost twice as likely to be funded than proposals from non-Bootcamp trainees. Overall, this structured program provided opportunities for feedback from multiple peer and faculty reviewers, increased the participants' confidence in developing and submitting research proposals, while accommodating a large number of participants.

SUBMITTER: Botham CM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7769268 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Biosciences Proposal Bootcamp: Structured peer and faculty feedback improves trainees' proposals and grantsmanship self-efficacy.

Botham Crystal M CM Brawn Shay S Steele Latishya L Barrón Cisco B CB Kleppner Sofie R SR Herschlag Daniel D

PloS one 20201228 12

Grant writing is an essential skill to develop for academic and other career success but providing individual feedback to large numbers of trainees is challenging. In 2014, we launched the Stanford Biosciences Grant Writing Academy to support graduate students and postdocs in writing research proposals. Its core program is a multi-week Proposal Bootcamp designed to increase the feedback writers receive as they develop and refine their proposals. The Proposal Bootcamp consisted of two-hour weekly ...[more]

PMID: 33370337

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Project description:BackgroundRecent research has shown a backlash against the enthusiastic promotion of technological solutions as replacements for traditional educational content delivery. Many institutions, including the University of Virginia, have committed staff and resources to supporting state-of-the-art, showpiece educational technology projects. However, the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library has taken the approach of helping Health Sciences faculty be more comfortable using technology in incremental ways for instruction and research presentations. In July 2004, to raise awareness of self-service multimedia resources for instructional and professional development needs, the Library conducted a "Multimedia Bootcamp" for nine Health Sciences faculty and fellows.MethodsCase study.ResultsProgram stewardship by a single Library faculty member contributed to the delivery of an integrated learning experience. The amount of time required to attend the sessions and complete homework was the maximum fellows had to devote to such pursuits. The benefit of introducing technology unfamiliar to most fellows allowed program instructors to start everyone at the same baseline while not appearing to pass judgment on the technology literacy skills of faculty. The combination of wrapping the program in the trappings of a fellowship and selecting fellows who could commit to a majority of scheduled sessions yielded strong commitment from participants as evidenced by high attendance and a 100% rate of assignment completion. Response rates to follow-up evaluation requests, as well as continued use of Media Studio resources and Library expertise for projects begun or conceived during Bootcamp, bode well for the long-term success of this program.ConclusionAn incremental approach to integrating technology with current practices in instruction and presentation provided a supportive yet energizing environment for Health Sciences faculty. Keys to this program were its faculty focus, traditional hands-on instruction, unrestricted access to technology tools and support, and inclusion of criteria for evaluating when multimedia can augment pedagogical aims.

Project description:Objective: Acquisition and application of professional and personal competences is accompanied by the formation and consolidation of attitudes and values and is influenced by the norms and moods (trust and feedback culture) experienced in the learning environment in question [1]. In particular, feedback and peer feedback can have a positive influence on the learning progress and personal development of students [2], [3], [4]. The promotion of a culture of teaching and ultimately of trust or feedback, plays a special role in this [5]. The aim was therefore to structurally integrate feedback into the curriculum of a model study course in order to develop a feedback culture in which students can develop personally and professionally with the help of regular and constructive feedback. Methodology: Following an initial pilot phase in 2009, (peer) feedback was gradually integrated into the curriculum at the medical faculty, in the first instance through checklists and subsequently through an online questionnaire and direct interviews. The activities were regularly analyzed on the basis of student evaluations using the EvaSys evaluation software and semi-standardized questionnaire-based interviews with six students in 2009 and 13 students each in 2012 and 2013. Results: Initially, students felt that the trust and feedback culture at their location as being in need of improvement. There were uncertainties regarding the use of constructive feedback and making criticism but also trust issues regarding the expression of personal perceptions to faculty members. It was possible to document the increase in the acceptance of the offers in the course of their establishment by an improvement in student evaluation and an increase in the number of participants in the voluntary offers amongst others. Qualitative data showed that students had a more positive perception or assessment of the location's feedback concept as well as indications of improvements in the culture of trust at the location. The proportion of constructive free-text comments increased significantly by 11% to 99.4% compared to the previous year (t(3)=-3.79, p=0.04). Thus, in terms of the objective, an increase in feedback activities and their quality at the faculty was achieved. Conclusion: Feedback, its acceptance as well as the quality, can be positively influenced at a faculty. Change measures should be tested repeatedly in discussion with users regarding practicability in order to directly pick up implementation issues and obstacles so they can be remedied in the interests of the users. This can influence the development of a culture of trust and feedback and should promote the personal and professional development of students in the long term.

Project description:BackgroundVast sums are distributed based on grant peer review, but studies show that interrater reliability is often low. In this study, we tested the effect of receiving two short individual feedback reports compared to one short general feedback report on the agreement between reviewers.MethodsA total of 42 reviewers at the Norwegian Foundation Dam were randomly assigned to receive either a general feedback report or an individual feedback report. The general feedback group received one report before the start of the reviews that contained general information about the previous call in which the reviewers participated. In the individual feedback group, the reviewers received two reports, one before the review period (based on the previous call) and one during the period (based on the current call). In the individual feedback group, the reviewers were presented with detailed information on their scoring compared with the review committee as a whole, both before and during the review period. The main outcomes were the proportion of agreement in the eligibility assessment and the average difference in scores between pairs of reviewers assessing the same proposal. The outcomes were measured in 2017 and after the feedback was provided in 2018.ResultsA total of 2398 paired reviews were included in the analysis. There was a significant difference between the two groups in the proportion of absolute agreement on whether the proposal was eligible for the funding programme, with the general feedback group demonstrating a higher rate of agreement. There was no difference between the two groups in terms of the average score difference. However, the agreement regarding the proposal score remained critically low for both groups.ConclusionsWe did not observe changes in proposal score agreement between 2017 and 2018 in reviewers receiving different feedback. The low levels of agreement remain a major concern in grant peer review, and research to identify contributing factors as well as the development and testing of interventions to increase agreement rates are still needed.Trial registrationThe study was preregistered at OSF.io/n4fq3 .

Dataset Information

Biosciences Proposal Bootcamp: Structured peer and faculty feedback improves trainees' proposals and grantsmanship self-efficacy.

Publications

Biosciences Proposal Bootcamp: Structured peer and faculty feedback improves trainees' proposals and grantsmanship self-efficacy.

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