Mentorship is a key focus area of efforts to promote a robust biomedical workforce. A growing body of research suggests that mentors’ cultural diversity awareness is an important factor in effective mentoring that can support mentees’ academic and professional outcomes. Less is known about the psychometric properties of scales assessing cultural diversity awareness (CDA). Further, researchers may not have space in surveys to measure all aspects of CDA. We examine the factorial structure and measurement invariance of the CDA Race/Ethnicity (R/E) Behaviors Scale, a subscale from an originally developed CDA Scale, using a large diverse undergraduate sample enrolled in higher education institutions funded by the National Institutes of Health BUilding Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Initiative.

The CDA R/E Behaviors Scale measures mentees’ perceptions of a mentor’s behaviors concerning cultural diversity awareness. Using a diverse national sample of over 4,000 undergraduate mentees, we examined dimensionality, reliability coefficients, and measurement invariance of the scale.

We found high reliability among the items with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.91 and Omega of 0.91. Items indicated a unidimensional scale and we found differential item-functioning (DIF) with respect to gender, but no DIF across race/ethnicity.

This study lends additional evidence to support construct validity of the CDA R/E Behaviors Scale, a subscale of the originally developed CDA Scale. Our study supports its use in future research for other science and medical training programs, and contributes tools to program evaluation efforts aimed at improving culturally responsive mentorship throughout the scientific career pathway.