Abstract Rationale By improving mentoring competency, mentor development interventions help address the shortage of faculty mentors, the greatest obstacle to successful mentoring. Recent data indicate that mentor development interventions do not enhance faculty mentees’ objectively measured scholarly productivity. This may be because longer-term follow-up is needed to assess this outcome, highlighting the importance of using an outcome more sensitive to short-term change. This study examines the impact of a mentor development intervention on faculty mentees’ Subjective Career Success Inventory (SCSI) assessment by mentees’ self-reported gender. Methods In a randomized controlled trial, the self-perceived career outcomes for faculty mentees whose mentors participated in a combined asynchronous and synchronous mentor development program (intervention group) were compared to the outcomes for mentees whose faculty mentors participated in an asynchronous program alone (control group), using a two-way interaction analysis between 12-month period*interaction. Gender-related differences were analyzed using a three-way interaction between 12-month period*intervention*gender. Mentees’ self-perceived career success was assessed at baseline and 12 months, using the 24-item, eight-dimension Shockley’s SCSI scale. P-values of 0.05 and 0.10 were considered statistically significant for two-way and three-way interaction analysis, respectively. Results Mentor-mentee dyads (N=91) from four Southwest and Mountain-West institutions were recruited. At 12 months, the increase in mentees’ self-reported overall SCSI scores from baseline were significantly greater in the intervention group compared to the control group (two-way interaction p=0.048). Specifically, the intervention group showed a greater increase from baseline to 12 months for the SCSI dimensions of meaningful work, influence, authenticity, and growth and development (all two-way interactions p0.05). There were significant gender-related differences in intervention-related increase at 12 months in overall SCSI score (p-value for three-way interaction 0.07), and SCSI dimensions of recognition (p = 0.03), influence (p = 0.097), and authenticity (p = 0.03), with lower intervention-related improvements at 12 months for women than men faculty mentees. Conclusions By demonstrating the impact of mentor development intervention on faculty mentees’ perceived career success, the study strengthens the intervention’s value as an institutional investment for enhancing the organizational mentoring climate. Olckers et al. demonstrated that the SCSI works equally well for both men and women as a measurement instrument, so our results are unlikely due to our chosen measure of career success. Rather, it is more likely that gender differences in developmental networks or mentoring efficacy or the pandemic effects on career success of women may affect perceived subjective career success. This abstract is funded by: NIH
Sood et al. (2026) studied this question.