Training

The group offers rigorous training through mentorship, peer mentorship, materials, and community.
 

Research Mentors
Research assistants at Thrive Research Group are paired with a mentor who is either a doctoral student or an advanced master’s degree student.
Research mentors typically hold weekly meetings with their research assistants.  Mentors are expected to be available over email and be available to schedule one on one meetings with their mentees.
Mentors are expected to provide feedback on RA skill development at a minimum of every three months on critical skill areas.

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Peer Mentorship
Junior RAs within a mentee group are typically guided in doing literature reviews by senior undergraduates so they adhere to the group’s standards.
Literature reviews are done in a group wiki and then edited by senior RAs and the research mentor.

Training Materials

The development and intuition about critically evaluating research is facilitated by the team maintaining a wiki of its literature review summaries where new RAs can see how others have performed the reviews and the details that were relevant.
In addition to the group’s knowledge base, it maintains an intranet with a guide to reading research critically as well as short videos from previous mentors about relevant topics, such as critically evaluating measures, common pitfalls in control strategies, etc.

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Community
Thanks to the support of Microsoft, the research team uses Microsoft Teams and encourages a collaborative culture.