Methods
Eligibility for this study consisted of the following criteria:
- The awardee must have accepted a CBCRP Postdoctoral Fellowship Award during the annual funding cycles V-XII (1999-2006).
- They must have used at least 6 months of award funding.
- Their award must have ended at least 6 months before the initiation of this study.
The CBCRP evaluation staff and committee designed an online survey and distributed it to previous CBCRP Postdoctoral Fellowship recipients meeting the eligibility criteria via email. Several questions from the previous 2001 Postdoctoral Fellowship evaluation were repeated in order to allow pooling of data and comparison along with new questions about awardees current and future career plans. Together the studies covered current positions, future career plans, outputs generated as a result of their funded research both during and after the award period, influence of the award on their involvement in breast cancer research, personal assessments of outcomes associated with CBCRP funding, and allowed opportunity for comments about CBCRP and the Postdoctoral Fellowship Award.
The CBCRP evaluator collected and confirmed current email addresses for each potential respondent and an email was sent to all respondents containing a link to the online survey. The survey remained open for one month and three reminder emails were sent to those awardees that did not complete the survey. Follow up phone calls were made to 4 respondents.
Upon completion of the surveys, reported outputs were verified by CBCRP evaluation staff in both the 2001 and 2008 studies. Publications were assessed for relevance to the funded project and additional funds leveraged were verified against online databases, when available. Funds leveraged by the awardees’ mentors were verified with the mentor. Upon analysis of the outcome data, the evaluation staff deemed it necessary to clarify emerging trends around publication and funds leveraged seen in the comparison of the 2001 and 2008 survey results. A follow up telephone survey was conducted of a random sub-sample of awardees responding to the original online survey. Evaluation staff scheduled half hour telephone conversations with the selected respondents and asked them to send their current CV or NIH biographical sketch prior to their scheduled conversation.
Publications and funds leveraged reported during the telephone surveys were compared to those reported via the online survey. Qualitative responses to additional questions about the respondents’ experiences relevant to the state of publication and funding in breast cancer research and research in general were also collected.
