A medical student scholarly concentrations program: scholarly self-efficacy and impact on future research activities

Background The Scholarly Concentrations program was established at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2009 with the aim of instilling passion for scholarship. Objective Our study aimed to determine whether the Scholarly Concentrations program achieves positive changes in medical student self-efficacy in conducting research and, if so, whether this results in future career aspirations toward scholarship. Design We used the Clinical Research Appraisal Inventory-Short Form (CRAI-SF) to assess changes in self-efficacy among students completing the Scholarly Concentrations program between 2014 and 2017. We calculated composite mean scores of six domains. We included outcomes on whether students published a manuscript, overall program perceptions, and likelihood of future research careers. We analyzed relationships between CRAI-SF scores and outcomes using paired t-tests and multivariable-adjusted logistic regression. Results A total of 419 students completed the Scholarly Concentrations program. All 6 CRAI domain scores showed significant improvements in self-efficacy between the pre-Scholarly Concentrations and post-Scholarly Concentrations ratings (range of changes 0.76–1.39, p