Measure Overview
The purpose of this measure is to assess six competencies of mentors: maintaining effective communication, aligning expectations, assessing understanding, addressing diversity, fostering independence, and promoting professional development.
Measure Information
- Scale
- Target Population
- NIH DPC Hallmark
- Key Citations
- Instructions
- Validity Evidence and Other Information
The measure was first published and developed in its original form by Fleming et. al. 2013, and therefore under copyright by Wolters Kluwer and the Association of American Colleges.
The article however is available free of charge through Wolters Kluwer at the citation listed in the Key Citations tab for Fleming 2013. Please also note that the measure has been re-validated and is available as open access as the MCA-21 at the third citation found under key citations: Hyun et. al., 2022
- Graduate Student
- Postdoc
- Faculty
FAC-17
Fleming, M., House, S., Hanson, V. S., Yu, L., Garbutt, J., McGee, R., Kroenke, K., Abedin, Z., & Rubio, D. M. (2013). The Mentoring Competency Assessment: validation of a new instrument to evaluate skills of research mentors. Academic medicine : Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 88(7), 1002–1008. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0b013e318295e298
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
Hyun, SH, Rogers, J.G., House, S.C., Sorkness, C.A., & Pfund, C. (2022). Revalidation of the Mentoring Competency Assessment to evaluate skills of research mentors: The MCA-21. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, 6(1) doi: 10.1017/cts.2022.381
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.
Alpha, RMSEA, and factor loadings in populations of mentors and mentees (internal structure validity). See original paper and re-validation in “Key Citations” tab for more information.
We align this measure with DPC Hallmark of Success 17 “Uses evidence-based practices in mentoring and teaching” even though this doesn’t measure frequency of evidence-based behaviors, but rather self-reported competency with evidence-based practices in mentoring (not teaching).