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. 2023 Apr 13;7(1):e100.
doi: 10.1017/cts.2023.523. eCollection 2023.

Perseverance and consistency of interest in underrepresented post-doctoral fellows and early-career faculty

Maya S Thakar  1 , Chantele Mitchell-Miland  1 , Natalia E Morone  2   3 , Andrew D Althouse  4 , Audrey J Murrell  5 , Doris M Rubio  1 , Gretchen E White  1
Affiliations

Perseverance and consistency of interest in underrepresented post-doctoral fellows and early-career faculty

Maya S Thakar et al. J Clin Transl Sci. .

Abstract

Introduction: Underrepresented researchers face more challenges than their well-represented counterparts. Perseverance and consistency of interest are associated with career success in well-represented physicians. Therefore, we examined associations of perseverance and consistency of interest with Clinical Research Appraisal Inventory (CRAI), science identity, and other factors related to career success among underrepresented post-doctoral fellows and early-career faculty.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional analysis of data collected from September to October 2020 among 224 underrepresented early-career researchers at 25 academic medical centers in the Building Up Trial. We used linear regression to test associations of perseverance and consistency of interest scores with CRAI, science identity, and effort/reward imbalance (ERI) scores.

Results: The cohort is 80% female, 33% non-Hispanic Black, and 34% Hispanic. The median perseverance and consistency of interest scores were 3.8 (25th-75th percentile: 3.7,4.2) and 3.7 (25th-75th percentile: 3.2, 4.0), respectively. Higher perseverance was associated with a higher CRAI score (β = 0.82; 95% CI = 0.30, 1.33, p = 0.002) and science identity (β = 0.44; 95% CI = 0.19, 0.68, p = 0.001). Higher consistency of interest was associated with a higher CRAI score (β = 0.60; 95% CI = 0.23, 0.96, p = 0.001) and higher science identity score (β = 0.20; 95% CI = 0.03, 0.36, p = 0.02), while lower consistency of interest was associated with imbalance favoring effort (β = -0.22; 95% CI = -0.33, -0.11, p = 0.001).

Conclusions: We found that perseverance and consistency of interest are related to CRAI and science identity, indicating that these factors may positively influence one's decision to stay in research.

Keywords: Grit; burnout; career development; diversifying the biomedical research workforce; diversity equity inclusion; science identity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no disclosures to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Institution and participant flow diagram for the building up a diverse biomedical research workforce trial.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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