Do I belong? Impostorism in science students

Impostor Phenomenon (IP) is commonly experienced by individuals in academia and is characterized as intellectual feelings of phoniness and fraudulence that can undermine confidence in oneself. Impostor feelings may also include high levels of self-doubt and self-criticism, difficulty accepting compliments or praise, perfectionism, and concerns about perceptions of incompetence. We conducted a campus-wide Impostor Phenomenon survey at the University of Windsor in Fall 2019. Over 1300 students responded to the survey questions about IP, resilience (the ability to maintain reasonable levels of psychological and physical functioning in the face of potentially disruptive events and stressors; Bonanno, 2004), general self-efficacy (a person’s beliefs about their abilities to execute certain behaviours and accomplish certain outcomes; Bandura, 2010), and satisfaction with life. Many students also provided answers to open-ended questions about impostorism and belonging that were subjected to a content analysis (analyzing and summarizing the data using iterative coding). We will share our findings from this survey, focusing on responses from science undergraduate and graduate students. We will also discuss how we used these findings to develop and deliver an online workshop to make students aware of IP and share strategies for managing feelings of impostorism. We invite you to bring your own device if you would like to participate in online Mentimeter polls during our presentation. This research was approved by the University of Windsor research ethics board.