Search

The impostor phenomenon (IP) is characterised by a belief that one is not actually intelligent or accomplished, despite objective evidence of success, but rather has fooled others and is therefore vulnerable to discovery as a fraud. Impostor feelings are widespread in the post-secondary population and may be disproportionately experienced by groups already marginalised within academia (e.g., women, racialised students). The IP may be associated with significant mental health issues and changes long-term education and career plans; as such, it is imperative that administrators take steps to address impostorism on university and college campuses. The purpose of this review was to summarise factors of the IP from existing research on the experiences and background characteristics of undergraduate, graduate and professional students (i.e., medicine, law). Findings on the subject of IP and gender as well as IP and ethnicity were inconsistent. Most studies found that IP was negatively related to self-esteem and various dimensions of mental health. The relationship of IP to grade point average was inconsistent but several studies showed a negative association between IP and measures of academic performance. These findings suggest there is a critical need to bring awareness to and address experiences of the IP in the academic community; implications for campus mental health professionals are explored. Limitations of existing research are addressed and directions for future research are discussed.

Higher education has faced increased pressure to prove its quality through 'economic efficiency' and 'value for money', thrusting institutions into what researchers call an 'audit culture'. This study explores whether and how the audit culture has impacted educational developers in Canadian post-secondary institutions. Results include a summary of participant data collection activities; perceptions around the use of data for accountability measures and whether audit practices accurately reflect educational development work; and recommendations on how educational developers might best navigate the audit culture.

Certain government agencies are requiring more and more evidence from colleges and universities that they are efficient, effective, and relevant by calling for numbers, key performance indicators, benchmarks, and quality assurance protocols--that is, evidence based on productivity, 'economic efficiency', and 'value for money' (Power, 1994; Shore, 2008; Shore & Wright, 2004, 2015). In this context, quality is determined by what is most visible to external scrutiny, and accountability has become conflated with accountancy, giving rise to what researchers have called "audit culture" (Power, 1994; Shore & Wright, 2004). This article explores how audit culture has emerged in higher education by critiquing the many ways in which it directs energy towards processes of compliance and by discussing how accountability might be reported without sacrificing quality. In the end, the authors propose strategies for navigating audit and accountability culture while meeting external requirements and maintaining the values and principles of higher education.

The teaching assistant program at the University of Windsor facilitates opportunities for students to develop leadership capacity, creativity, and pedagogical knowledge. This study explored the skills that student workshop facilitators were developing and/or enhancing, and how these skills might be used outside of teaching-related duties. Data from former student workshop facilitators were collected through an online survey (n = 15) and semi-structured interviews (n = 6). The results indicated that participants developed a range of teaching-related skills through leading teaching and learning workshops. The knowledge and skills facilitators garnered often resulted in them being perceived as teaching and learning leaders amongst their peers. Further, participants emphasized that leading workshops provided a unique opportunity to practice, increased their confidence, and led them to apply their skills in academic and non-academic endeavours.

Professional development (PD) was examined among faculty members to identify enablers and inhibitors, and the coping strategies used to mitigate these. Three faculty members in the field of Kinesiology, at different career stages (early, middle, and late career), were recruited to participate in semi-structured phone interviews. Guided by Cafarella and Zinn's (1999) conceptual framework, four domains of PD were explored. Key PD enablers were mentorship, geographic isolation, scarce teaching resources, and limited financial support. The use of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping was also reported. Implications for post-secondary faculty and administration are presented.

The relative age effect (RAE) describes the physical and cognitive (dis)advantages experienced by athletes based upon when their birthdate falls relative to a pre-established cut-off date. Despite RAEs being present in a number of sports, few studies have explored how relative age influences the positive youth development (PYD) of athletes. This study examined the mechanisms that facilitate and hinder athletes' acquisition of PYD outcomes and whether these are influenced by relative age. A secondary objective included determining how athletes employed these skills in other contexts. Twenty competitive female ice hockey players were interviewed (mage = 17. 2 years). Thematic analyses revealed that all athletes, regardless of their relative age, developed a range of PYD outcomes in the personal, physical, and social domains, and have applied these skills in a variety of contexts outside of sport. Across relative younger and older athletes, three interrelated themes emerged and served as the overarching mechanisms that facilitated or hindered athletes' development of PYD outcomes: the social features of the sport environment, the structure of female travel/rep ice hockey, and negative ice hockey experiences. Our findings have implications for creating sport environments that foster PYD. Keywords: positive youth development; relative age effect; female ice hockey; negative developmental experiences; qualitative research, Within sport, it is common practice for athletes to be categorized by chronological age (Baker et al., 2010; Musch & Grondin, 2001) to ensure fairness in competition, age-appropriate instruction, and [...]

A multi-disciplinary academic unit at a Canadian university completed an evaluation of course syllabi used in its undergraduate programmes over the previous five years. This paper examines the reasons for the evaluation, the processes employed to collect and analyse the data, and how the results will be incorporated into the next steps of the overall curricula reform planned within the unit. The evaluation focused on the unit's adherence to departmental and university policies, course reading materials, experiential learning opportunities, forms of assessments (e.g. types and weighting of assignments), learning outcomes and instructor-specific policies (e.g. group work expectations, late assignments). While a summary of the results of the evaluation are provided herein, these are meant to highlight the administrative and curricular benefits and uses of the data, rather than an analysis and discussion of the results themselves.

Relative age effects (RAEs) explain the (dis)advantages individuals experience as a result of when they are born relative to a pre-determined cut-off date. Within an interuniversity setting, academic timing (AT) may moderate the RAE pattern due to some student-athletes having eligibility years that do not correspond with their birth years. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the RAE and AT on interuniversity football players. A series of chi-square goodness of fit tests (?2) revealed no RAE when all student-athletes were analyzed together as well as among those who were delayed (i.e. eligibility years that correspond with a younger cohort), and a traditional RAE among those who were on-time (i.e. eligibility years that correspond with their year of birth). Student-athletes ranged between 1 and 12 years delayed, with the majority of these athletes being delayed by one (30.76%) or two years (30.97%). This study suggests that there may be advantages to student-athletes delaying their participation within football, as these delays may help mitigate the overall RAE by equalizing playing opportunities for relatively younger student-athletes. However, delaying eligibility raises concerns about equity, particularly for those progressing to interuniversity football directly out of high school who may have to compete for roster spots against student-athletes who may be up to 12 years delayed.

Centres for teaching and learning (CTLs) often play a brokering and supporting role in student partnerships (SaP), but there is little research exploring partnerships between students and academic developers. Our study qualitatively examined whether students perceived themselves as partners within a CTL, even though this was not explicitly articulated as SaP. Results indicated students perceived themselves as partners and developed transferable skills: professionalism, communication and collaboration, leadership, and research. Additionally, the benefits enhanced the CTL mission for teaching and learning. Our findings imply that meaningful partnerships with students and related benefits can occur in a relationshiprich context outside a formally articulated SaP program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Impostor Phenomenon (IP) is a person's experience of internalized fraudulence relative to their successes; this is characterized by a fear of being "found out" and judged by others as well as difficulties internalizing successes (Clance & Imes, 1978). Previous research has suggested that it is commonly experienced by professors and staff in postsecondary institutions and associated with a variety of negative outcomes related to career and mental health. As part of an online survey about IP, academic staff and professors were provided an open text box and asked to describe the causes, consequences, and experiences of impostor feelings in academic settings. Three overarching categories and eight subcategories were identified through inductive content analysis, including 1) triggers of impostor feelings (i.e., interpersonal interactions, situational influences), 2) qualities of the experience itself (i.e., negative external perceptions, negative self-perceptions, feelings of fraudulence, negative emotions) and 3) management of impostor feelings (i.e., effective strategies, ineffective strategies). Implications for addressing impostor feelings in academic staff and professors are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education has faced increased pressure to prove its quality through 'economic efficiency' and 'value for money', thrusting institutions into what researchers call an 'audit culture'. This study explores whether and how the audit culture has impacted educational developers in Canadian post-secondary institutions. Results include a summary of participant data collection activities; perceptions around the use of data for accountability measures and whether audit practices accurately reflect educational development work; and recommendations on how educational developers might best navigate the audit culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning is the property of Society for Teaching & Learning in Higher Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The current investigation examined the impact of academic timing and the relative age effect (RAE) in men's and women's intercollegiate basketball. Academic timing is particularly important in the context of intercollegiate sport, and has received very little attention since Glamser and Marciani (1992) introduced the topic in this journal more than two decades ago. When a student's actual athletic eligibility year is consistent with her or his anticipated athletic eligibility year (based on year of birth), she or he is classified as 'on-time.' Those whose actual athletic eligibility years coincide with a younger age cohort are categorized as 'delayed.' The birthdates of 475 female and 429 male National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 basketball players were collected from the rosters of top-ranked teams and identified as either on-time or delayed based on their birth date and eligibility status. Chi-square goodness of fits tests ([X.sup.2]) were used to compare the distribution of birthdates for the female and male student-athletes with that expected within the United States across each quartile. The analyses revealed that on-time student-athletes were more commonly born in the early months of the selection year whereas delayed student-athletes were more likely to be born in the latter months. Our results suggest that on-time student-athletes born late in the selection year are disadvantaged and that delaying entrance to university may be an option for equalizing the playing field and/or gaining an advantage., Children are traditionally placed into age cohorts as an organizational strategy within educational and sport systems. This categorization is an attempt to ensure equal opportunity and fairness, yet evidence suggests [...]

This study examined the moderating effects of academic timing on the relative age effect in men's and women's U Sports (formerly Canadian Interuniversity Sports) volleyball. Interuniversity sport exists within an academic setting and encompasses different age groups within a single team, making it necessary to account for the academic timing of student athletes when studying the relative age effect. To be considered "on-time," a student athlete's birthdate and expected athletic eligibility status must coincide, while a "delayed" student athlete will have an athletic eligibility corresponding with a younger cohort. We collected birthdates and eligibility years from the U Sports eligibility certificates of 2,780 male and 3,715 female athletes for the years 2006–2007 through 2013–2014; we then classified athletes as either on-time or delayed. We used a chi-square (χ2) goodness-of-fit tests to compare the observed distributions of student athletes' actual versus "expected" births across each quartile. Our analyses demonstrated an advantage for athletes born in the first half of the selection year. These results suggest that delaying entry into university may help equalize the playing field for relatively younger athletes wishing to compete in U Sports volleyball. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]