Measurement of social capital among clinical research trainees

Primack, BA and Colditz, JB and Cohen, E and Switzer, GE and Robinson, GFWB and Seltzer, DL and Rubio, DM and Kapoor, WN (2014) Measurement of social capital among clinical research trainees. Clinical and Translational Science, 7 (1). 33 - 37. ISSN 1752-8054

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Abstract

While physical and human capital are established as important predictors of success among early-career clinical investigators, less is known about the role of social capital. The authors aimed to develop a brief scale to assess social capital in this population and test its reliability and validity. A three-item assessment was developed based on a conceptual framework and measures of social capital from other fields and was administered to 414 clinical research trainees at the University of Pittsburgh in 2007-2012. The measure exhibited good internal consistency reliability (α = 0.71) and a normal distribution. On a 10-point scale, mean social capital was 6.4 (SD = 1.7). Social capital was significantly associated with 7 of the 9 expected constructs: sex, age, confidence in research skills, work-related motivation, burnout, and social support. Exploratory multivariable regression analysis demonstrated that social capital was most strongly associated with higher research confidence (β = 0.35, p < 0.001), higher extrinsic motivation (β = 0.50, p = 0.003), and lower burnout (ptrend = 0.02). This three-item scale measures social capital in this population with adequate internal consistency reliability, face validity, and construct validity. This brief assessment provides a tool that may be valuable to benchmark social capital of clinical research trainees and to better contextualize programmatic and trainee outcomes. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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Creators	Email	Pitt Username
Primack, BA	bprimack@pitt.edu	BPRIMACK
Colditz, JB	colditzjb@pitt.edu	JBC28
Cohen, E
Switzer, GE	gswitzer@pitt.edu	GSWITZER
Robinson, GFWB
Seltzer, DL
Rubio, DM	dmr18@pitt.edu	DMR18
Kapoor, WN	wnk1@pitt.edu	WNK1