Mentorship Competency Assessment (MCA)

Purpose of Measure: Assesses six competencies of mentors: maintaining effective communication, aligning expectations, assessing understanding, addressing diversity, fostering independence, and promoting professional development.

Lay-Person Terms: N/A

Measure:

Please rate how skilled you feel you are in each of the following areas:

	1. Not at all skilled	2.	3.	4. Moderately skilled	5.	6.	7. Extremely skilled
1. Active listening.
2. Providing constructive feedback.
3. Establishing a relationship based on trust.
4. Identifying and accommodating different communication styles.
5. Employing strategies to improve communication with mentees.
6. Coordinating effectively with your mentees’ other mentor.
7. Working with mentees to set clear expectations on the mentoring relationship.
8. Aligning your expectations with your mentees’.
9. Considering how personal and professional differences may impact expectations.
10. Working with mentees to set research goals.
11. Working effectively with mentees whose personal backgrounds is different than your own (age, race, gender, class, region, culture, religion, family composition, etc.).
12. Helping your mentees network effectively.
13. Helping your mentees set career goals.
14. Helping your mentees balance work with their personal life.
15. Understanding your impact as a role model.
16. Helping your mentees acquire resources (e.g., grants, etc.)
17. Helping mentees develop strategies to meet goals.
18. Accurately estimating your mentees’ level of scientific knowledge.
19. Accurately estimating your mentees’ ability to conduct research.
20. Employing strategies to enhance your mentees’ understanding of that research.
21. Motivating your mentees.
22. Building your mentees’ confidence.
23. Stimulating your mentees’ confidence.
24. Acknowledging your mentees’ professional contributions.
25. Negotiating a path to professional independence with your mentees.
26. Taking into account biases and prejudices you bring to the mentor/mentee relationship.

Type of Validity: YAlpha, RMSEA, and factor loadings for mentors and mentees

Citation of Publication: Fleming M, House S, Hanson VS, Yu L, Garbutt J, McGee R, Kroenke K, Abedin Z, Rubio DM. The Mentoring Competency Assessment: validation of a new instrument to evaluate skills of research mentors. Acad Med. 2013 Jul;88(7):1002-8. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e318295e298. PMID: 23702534; PMCID: PMC3727250.

Instructions to analyze and interpret: Used in evaluation of mentor training interventions. "To characterize the study sample, we used descriptive statistics. To characterize mentor competency levels, we determined the mean score and standard deviation (SD) for each of the 26 items as ranked by the mentor and mentee groups." - Fleming et. al., 2013 Requires validation for use in postdoc populations.

Other citations: Pfund, C., House, S. C., Asquith, P., Fleming, M. F., Buhr, K. A., Burnham, E. L., Eichenberger Gilmore, J. M., Huskins, W. C., McGee, R., Schurr, K., Shapiro, E. D., Spencer, K. C., & Sorkness, C. A. (2014). Training mentors of clinical and translational research scholars: a randomized controlled trial. Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 89(5), 774–782. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000000218

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