An Intervention Addressing Impostor Phenomenon in Undergraduate Physics and Astronomy

Abstract

The experience of the impostor phenomenon, when a person doubts themselves and believes that they are underqualified and do not belong in a position as a result, can be a challenge for undergraduate physics students. In a small-scale interview study, we found that the impostor phenomenon was frequently reported by physics undergraduates. On this basis, we developed an intervention to target the impostor phenomenon. The intervention had three phases. In the first phase, we introduced key concepts to students, giving them labels for their experiences. In the second phase, we gave students passages which depicted stories of higher-level students who had experienced the impostor phenomenon. We prompted conversation between students on the passages to normalize the discussion around the impostor phenomenon. Finally, in the third phase we asked students to reflect on what advice they would give future students who struggled with the impostor phenomenon. This was to encourage students to think about their own strategies when it comes to dealing with the impostor phenomenon. The intervention was run in class with 279 undergraduate students. The evaluation of the intervention via follow-up interviews was positive. The students spoke about the need for such an intervention and suggested adaptations. This intervention could be a step towards promoting a culture in educational settings where impostor feelings can be discussed openly.

1. Introduction

The impostor phenomenon is a common experience in higher education (for a review see Parkman, 2016). Students are navigating new environments, entering new social circles, and potentially even studying away from home for the first time where they could begin to question their sense of belonging or fit in educational contexts (e.g., Walton & Cohen, 2007). The impact of the phenomenon is far-reaching in student populations experiencing these new challenges and transitions. The literature on the impostor phenomenon (the wording ‘impostor phenomenon’ over ‘impostor syndrome’ as the use of syndrome is seen to medicalize the experience and make it seem like an uncommon phenomenon) is varied and suggests that it can affect between 9% and 82% of a sample (for statistics see Bravata et al., 2020). To better support their students, universities should expect that some students will experience feelings of the impostor phenomenon over the course of their studies.

The purpose of the current article is to describe a research-based intervention focused on the impostor phenomenon aimed at undergraduate physics students. The intervention takes around 50 min and is easy to administer. The key aims of this intervention were to give students more information on the impostor phenomenon and encourage them to discuss their experiences with others to promote a sense of shared experience and potential social support. If students feel comfortable having conversations about their experiences, they may recognize that impostor feelings are widespread and common. In what follows, we discuss the literature on the impostor phenomenon both generally and specifically to physics, before then discussing the development, structure and evaluation of the intervention.

The Impostor Phenomenon and Retention in Physics and Astronomy

Coined by Clance and Imes (1978), the impostor phenomenon describes when (often successful) people doubt themselves, believe that they are underqualified, and do not belong in their position as a result. This can stem from social comparison, as people compare themselves to those around them and make negative self-evaluations, as they do not view themselves as being as capable as their peers (Sakulku & Alexander, 2011). Those who experience high levels of the impostor phenomenon also tend to attribute their successes to external factors, rather than to themselves (Clance & Imes, 1978).

The impostor phenomenon has been seen in university students across a wide range of subjects, and many students will experience the impostor phenomenon in some form over the course of their university or academic career (see Parkman, 2016). However, there may be subject-specific effects, and here we are interested in undergraduate physics students. Gender imbalances persist in physics, both in terms of numbers (Skibba, 2019) and in terms of self-perception (see Nissen & Shemwell, 2016; Kalender et al., 2019). While both men and women can experience the impostor phenomenon, perhaps women in physics experience it to a greater degree than men (see Beesley et al., 2024).

Ivie et al. (2016) examined the relationship between sex and the impostor phenomenon in a sample of 300 astronomy and astrophysics PhD graduates. They found that sex was indirectly related to whether a student changed their PhD supervisors during their course of study via their self-reported levels of the impostor phenomenon. Furthermore, students who changed their supervisors were more likely to choose to work outside of their field of study post-PhD. This demonstrates how sex differences in the impostor phenomenon can relate to students’ outcomes in physics and astronomy.

It is possible that doubt and uncertainty around belonging may result in a greater desire to leave the field of physics. If this is the case, then gender differences in the level of the impostor phenomenon experienced may go some way to explain differences in the dropout rate for men and women in physics. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM subjects) are often said to have a ‘leaky pipeline’, where the fraction of women in the field reduces the further one progresses in their academic trajectory. This is reflected in the relatively few women continuing to study physics at the postgraduate level (e.g., Skibba, 2019). Women in physics also tend to report lower levels of physics self-efficacy (a confidence in their abilities to complete physics-based tasks) compared to men (see Nissen & Shemwell, 2016), and self-efficacy has been negatively associated with levels of the impostor phenomenon (Pákozdy et al., 2024; McDowell et al., 2015). Therefore, gendered differences in self-efficacy in physics could potentially translate to gendered differences in the impostor phenomenon.

2. Methods and Materials: Student Pre-Interviews

Many students will experience the impostor phenomenon over the course of their academic studies, with both men and women encountering the phenomenon (see Caselman et al., 2006). As such, we aimed to create an intervention to help address students’ feelings of the impostor phenomenon by encouraging them to have an open discussion about their experiences, regardless of gender. Prior to developing the intervention, we ran a small-scale interview study (called “pre-interviews” in what follows) aimed at better understanding our students’ experiences. The pre-interviews fed into the development of passages that were used in the intervention and to make the intervention more authentic. In what follows, we describe the pre-interview structure and outcomes.

2.1. Pre-Interview Participants

Participants in these interviews were final-year physics or astronomy undergraduate students at a small, research-intensive university in the UK. A call was sent out to students in the last two years of their undergraduate degree specifically, as they have the most experience of undergraduate physics and were able to give a broader overview of the undergraduate experience. The call asked students to take part in an interview about student experience and highlighted that there would be some questions that asked about gender in relation to physics. Students were paid with a £10 shopping voucher for their time for participating in the study. Six women (denoted “W1” to “W6” in the quotations below) and two men (denoted “M1” and “M2”) replied to the call and took part in the interviews. The small size of the sample should be considered in terms of the extrapolation of these results to other contexts. Whilst this is not usually a focus of qualitative research, it is important as we aimed to use these interviews to inform our intervention. It should also be noted that the sample was self-selective, potentially meaning that we recruited only those who had strong views on the matter. Those that replied were provided with an information sheet and consent form to complete and return prior to the start of the interview.

2.2. Pre-Interview Structure

The interviews were all conducted by the first author. The students were informed that the interview would take approximately 20 min and would be conducted over Microsoft Teams. The interviews were semi-structured, with a script that the interviewer followed, such that they asked the same questions to each participant but asked follow-up questions if an answer could be elaborated on. The questions were not specific to the impostor phenomenon, but rather focused on models of gender differences in physics education (e.g., Hazari et al., 2010, identity model). Specifically, the questions focused on students’ beliefs that gender had an impact on their experience in physics, their confidence and sense of belonging in the course, and whether they felt that their experience related to their academic performance or desire to continue in physics as a discipline. The interviews were recorded and later transcribed by the interviewer.

2.3. Analysis Plan

Our aim was to use the data to inform the development of an intervention. As such, we used a form of program evaluation, as opposed to a traditional qualitative analysis. While aspects of generalizability are not usually a focus of qualitative work, here we were looking for commonalities in issues raised for the development of the intervention. Therefore, we searched specifically for issues that were raised in a similar manner by multiple students. This allowed us to tailor our intervention to students’ needs.

In the analysis, authors familiarized themselves with the data transcriptions and then searched the transcripts for mention of issues that the students had raised. The quotes and issues raised were then reviewed and discussed by the author team, and they felt that the impostor phenomenon was an appropriate label for a common issue raised. Impostor phenomenon thus became the focus of the intervention.

2.4. Results from the Pre-Interviews

The interviews highlighted that the impostor phenomenon was present in the small sample collected. In what follows, we give quotes to illustrate how students’ experiences related to the impostor phenomenon.

One student specifically referred to the experience of the impostor phenomenon being a barrier to her progression in physics:

INTERVIEWER: “Do you think your experiences so far… would that impact your decision to take and continue on to level 5”.

W2: “Yes, they have, yeah”.

Interviewer: “And in what way?”

W2: … “Relating to impostor syndrome. When I was in my second year I actually wanted to get into academia, and then as I progressed, my impostor syndrome just got worse and I just decided I don’t really want to be doing a job for the rest of my life that involves me just doubting myself and my abilities all the time”.

This quote highlights how the impostor phenomenon may potentially be discouraging students from continuing with physics, contributing to the leaky pipeline of women in terms of progression.

The feelings of the impostor phenomenon seemed to affect students who were achieving at a very high level in physics. One student reported:

INTERVIEWER: “And you mentioned that you are performing quite well in recent years…but in terms of your confidence in your abilities within physics. Would you say you were quite confident with *your”

[Talking overlaps, stops at last asterisk]

W6: “No*…definitely not. I have quite, quite an extreme case of impostor syndrome, I would say. And my attitude has always been that you know, my results might say one thing and people will look at your results and think: “oh, you know, you must be a, a great young physicist”, but actually I don’t believe that that’s necessarily true. Because I don’t believe that from what I’ve seen of my fellow students, that the results they get in their exams are actually representative of the potential that they have to be a future researcher”.

This quotation suggests that student W6 believes student grades are not a good barometer of their abilities to be a future researcher. It is clear from this quote that even high-achieving students can justify impostor feelings.

Related to the impostor phenomenon, two of the students also mentioned that they did not feel a sense of confidence in their abilities.

INTERVIEWER: … “Personally, how confident do you feel in your abilities in physics?

W2: I’m not confident at all. I would say…I felt confident up until second year, and when the new stuff started…the contents are getting harder, that’s when I started to doubt. I doubt myself all the time. Whenever I’m doing tutorial questions. It’s just an everyday thing, I don’t think there’s a day that goes by [pause] I don’t think I’m actually good at my degree”.

Student W2 describes constantly doubting her abilities. Student W3 echoed this self-doubt but said it had impacted her more at the transition to university.

INTERVIEWER: “…how confident do you feel in your abilities in physics?”

W3: “I’d say much more confident than when I was joining University…I did feel a lot of ‘oh no, I’m not good enough’ or, you know ‘what… what do I do now?’”.

W3 highlights that the initial transition to university was challenging and that they did also doubt their position; however, in this case it has subsided over time. This aligns with the literature on student well-being in universities, where transition periods can be particularly challenging for individuals (see Clearly et al., 2011).

Two of the students’ spoke of how they viewed the impostor phenomenon as a gendered experience. These students felt as if the experience of the impostor phenomenon was something that disproportionately impacted females. One of them stated:

INTERVIEWER: “You have mentioned that you’ve spoken to others, other women in the course about these kind of issues… is what you’ve been saying the general consensus, do you think?”

W2: “Yes…We talked about a big thing which is impostor syndrome. I don’t think many of my male colleagues have experienced it as much… on the same scale as female colleagues, for sure”.

Two students stated that the female professors had spoken about their experience of the impostor phenomenon. One of them stated:

“INTERVIEWER: “Do you feel like it…gender has an impact or impacts on your experience of the teaching?”

W4: “A lot of the female professors also talked a lot about stuff like impostor syndrome and how being female, in like in especially STEM subjects, you kind of feel like you’re not really, yeah, really deserve to be there”.

Whilst this is positive in terms of creating conversations around the phenomenon, it is possible that this dialogue also encourages women in physics to feel that the impostor phenomenon is solely an experience of women in physics. It is worthwhile considering how we can create a culture to combat pluralistic ignorance, the incorrect belief that a feeling held by many is held only by an individual or a small group of people, where both students and staff alike are able to discuss their impostor feelings openly regardless of gender or sex. In what follows, we first (in Section 3) describe the literature relevant to our intervention. Section 4.1. then describes how our pre-interview results fed into the intervention development.

3. Evidence Base for the Impostor Phenomenon Intervention

Utilizing the information gained from the interviews and the literature on psychological interventions, we developed a short intervention to try to encourage discussion about the impostor phenomenon. To create the intervention, we drew upon psychological concepts shown in Figure 1. In what follows, we discuss each of these concepts, explaining how they relate to our intervention and justify the choices made.

3.1. Walton and Cohen’s Belonging Intervention

We adapted Walton and Cohen’s (2011) belonging intervention, as it covers many concepts which overlap with our interests. This intervention has been shown to provide long-term gains in students’ sense of belonging in a multitude of different disciplines (see Binning et al., 2020; Broda et al., 2018).

The intervention introduced by Walton and Cohen (2011) was created to encourage a sense of belonging in students. The study initially examined belonging in European and African American students at a US college, comparing a “social belonging” and a control group. In the social belonging group, students were given narratives that they had been told were passages from senior students in their college. The narratives stated that at first the student had struggled, but, as they progressed, they came to realise that this struggle was quite normal and that this is part of the transition to college. This was to highlight that it is not unusual for students to question their sense of belonging.

One of the primary reasons Walton and Cohen’s (2011) intervention was adapted, is that a version of this intervention had already been used to examine gender differences in STEM. Binning et al. (2020) ran a form of this intervention in a course entitled “Basic Physics for Engineers”. They found that non-white students who took part in the intervention group achieved significantly better grades than those in the control group. Binning and colleagues also found that the gap between grades of men and women was reduced in the intervention group.

3.2. Brilliance Expectations

Brilliance expectations describe how students in particular disciplines, including physics, tend to (incorrectly) be seen as intellectually ‘brilliant’ (i.e., naturally very capable and able to understand concepts effortlessly; see Leslie et al., 2015). It is possible that these perceptions, if internalized by the student, could lead to the impostor phenomenon, as students who must work hard to understand concepts can begin to feel that if they do not understand things naturally, then they must not be a good physicist. This could also lead students to worry that they are not ‘brilliant enough’ to study physics at a high level.

3.3. The “Saying Is Believing” Effect

As with Walton and Cohen’s (2011) intervention, we employed the use of the “saying is believing” effect (Higgins & Rholes, 1978). This is the idea that those who are asked to describe a position in their own words and engage in the argument, are more likely to endorse this perspective in the future. In their study of stereotype threat in African American college students, Aronson et al. (2002) gave European and African American students pen pals to write to. They had to write to a pen pal who was finding their studies difficult. The participants were split into groups. The experimental groups asked participants to write a response to their pen pal assuring them that intelligence was malleable and that with hard work they can expand their intelligence and improve. In the control condition, participants were told to write an encouraging letter, but it did not portray the idea that intelligence is malleable. The results found that after three sessions of advocating that intelligence was malleable, African American students were significantly more likely to believe this position themselves, compared to those in the control group. This was also the case for the European American students, but not to the same extent. This study demonstrated how repeated descriptions of a position can result in people advocating this position themselves.

3.4. Pluralistic Ignorance

The concept of pluralistic ignorance is that people may not extrapolate their experiences beyond themselves, thinking that they are the only ones who feel the way they do. Applied to the educational context, Walton and Brady (2020) suggested that addressing pluralistic ignorance is key in terms of addressing issues of belonging in students. In this context, they defined pluralistic ignorance as the perception that issues of belonging are specific to oneself, not to people generally (see also Prentice & Miller, 1993). This likely also applies to the impostor phenomenon. Students feel as if their experience of impostor feelings are specific to themselves, and that others may not understand. We know that both men and women experience the impostor phenomenon (e.g., Caselman et al., 2006), but the belief that only women experience it could be a harmful belief for both men and women in physics. It may discourage men from sharing their experience as they feel like it should not impact them, and it may discourage women from sharing their experience as they view it as an issue that affects women only. The wider conversation about the impostor phenomenon may be stifled, and students may not be aware of the ubiquitousness of impostor feelings.

4. Methods and Materials: Our Intervention

4.1. Considerations and Adaptions for Our Intervention

The first key adaptation for our intervention was the change of focus from Walton and Cohen’s intervention (see Section 3) regarding belonging to the impostor phenomenon as observed in the pre-interviews. Although the concepts of belonging and the impostor phenomenon are related, there are key differences. Impostor phenomenon regularly involves doubting your ability. This is not necessarily the case for those that feel as if they do not belong, with belonging uncertainty occurring for many reasons (see Walton & Cohen, 2007). Therefore, our intervention was adapted to focus on pluralistic ignorance, self-doubt and the impostor phenomenon to make it more specific to this key issue seen in the pre-interviews.

A further adaptation that we included was the key message that we were trying to convey. Walton and Cohen’s (2011) intervention focused on the concept that students’ experience will improve with time as they find their way. Our intervention tried to convey the idea that people can experience the impostor phenomenon at any time of their career, and it will not necessarily go away over time as seen in the quotes in Section 2. As previous studies suggest (e.g., Ivie & Ephraim, 2009), students in physics and astronomy can continue to feel impostor feelings in their postgraduate degrees and beyond. It is also a fallacy to think that students will simply overcome the impostor phenomenon individually, which can place the responsibility on the student rather than the institution (see Murray et al., 2022). Therefore, the message that things will get better for students with time is not necessarily true in this context. Consequently, our message was to encourage students to view the impostor phenomenon as something that is, to some degree, quite normal and that everyone experiences it at some point. This was to encourage a change in the way in which students think about impostor feelings, so that when they experience these feelings, they feel comfortable talking about them and reaching out for help. This was deemed important to incorporate in the intervention as no help-seeking behavior was mentioned in the pre-interviews.

4.2. The Recipients of the Intervention

The intervention was conducted as part of a mandatory workshop series for first- and second-year students at a small, research-intensive university in the UK. This included a total of 279 students. Class sizes were around 30 students due to the UK COVID-19 restrictions. The intervention was conducted near the mid-point of the first academic semester, so that students had some time to experience university culture and classes.

4.3. Phases of the Intervention

Table 1. An overview of the three phases of the developed intervention, showing the content, purpose and approximate duration of each phase.

Phase	Content	Purpose	Duration
1	An introduction conducted on PowerPoint outlining the impostor phenomenon and related constructs.	To give students a label for their experiences; to explain that brilliance expectations are incorrect; to show that highly successful physicists experience impostor feelings.	~15 min
2	Students read passages adapted from the pre-interviews of more senior students. Students then discuss prompt questions in small groups.	To help students realise that more senior students have experienced the impostor phenomenon and that it is a normal experience.	~20 min
3	Students write a paragraph about what advice they would give to an incoming student who was experiencing the impostor phenomenon.	To get students to reflect on the key messages of phases 1 and 2.	~15 min

gives an overview of the three phases of our intervention. The first phase introduced the concept of the impostor phenomenon to students. This was done in the form of a short presentation. Like Walton and Cohen (2011) before us, the second phase aimed to normalize the discussion around the impostor phenomenon, with students reading passages we had designed based on what we had been told by final-year students in the pre-interviews. In the final phase, students were asked to reflect on some of the techniques they may use to deal with impostor feelings should they arise. To do this, students wrote a short paragraph where they described the advice they would give an incoming student who was suffering from the impostor phenomenon. In what follows, we shall describe each of these phases in more depth and explain the evidence base supporting each.

Although there is evidence to suggest that women do experience the impostor phenomenon to a greater degree in physics, compared to men, we purposefully did not mention gender at any point throughout the intervention. This is because we did not want to induce stereotype threat (see Spencer et al., 1999), where women would become aware of stereotypes about gender and physics, that would then create a self-fulfilling prophecy. While we expected the intervention to disproportionately benefit female students, the intervention was designed so that all students could benefit. Therefore, we did not ‘target’ women in this intervention; rather, encouraged all students to think about the impostor phenomenon. Our intention was to change the department culture to allow more open conversation around the impostor phenomenon.

4.4. Phase 1: Introducing the Impostor Phenomenon

Phase 1 of the intervention introduced the concepts of the impostor phenomenon and brilliance expectations to students. This phase involved students viewing a short introductory talk (see the Supplementary Materials for slides). The talk started by introducing the impostor phenomenon to students, highlighting many of the aspects of the phenomenon initially introduced by Clance and Imes (1978). Primarily, it explained to students that the impostor phenomenon often involved the feeling that they did not deserve the position they were in or that they were underqualified. Furthermore, this slide highlighted that people of any academic ability can experience the impostor phenomenon, and that it can lead to people attributing their successes to external factors.

Following the initial introduction of the impostor phenomenon, we used the example of an article in BBC News written about an interview conducted with esteemed astrophysicist, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who described her experience of the impostor phenomenon (Flanagan, 2020, BBC News, 28 November 2020). This slide was chosen to highlight that successful and established physicists are still capable of experiencing impostor feelings, and that you can still be successful even if you do experience the impostor phenomenon.

Following this, two factors contributing to the experience of the impostor phenomenon were introduced: the brilliance expectation and the challenge of learning physics. Firstly, we explained that the impostor phenomenon may occur because of brilliance expectations in physics. Secondly, we highlighted to students that the concepts that they were dealing with in physics are often abstract and complex. Consequently, it is normal that concepts are difficult to grasp, and students may not understand them straight away. This seemed important to stress as the intervention was aimed at students at the start of their undergraduate studies. Coming from high school, students may not have encountered content that they find very difficult to grasp. To stress the challenge of physics, we presented a Richard Feynman quote on confusion to the students:

“I get that feeling all the time, that I’m an ape trying to put two sticks together…so I always feel stupid. Every once and a while though the sticks go together on me and I reach the banana”.

(Quote by Richard Feynman, 1963, Goodreads, 2023)

This quotation was chosen for several reasons. Firstly, it captures the feeling of a lack of understanding well. Secondly, it presents another famous physicist who also has struggled at times. We deliberately chose one woman (Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell) and one man (Richard Feynman) to make sure students did not perceive it as a problem specific to a particular gender. This was used to highlight to students that these issues are quite normal and can affect anyone in physics.

4.5. Phase 2: Normalizing Discussion Around the Impostor Phenomenon

Phase 2 of the intervention focused on trying to encourage students to realize they were not alone in experiencing the impostor phenomenon and that the experience was, in most cases, normal. In this phase, the students were asked to read ‘quotations’ from students in the upper levels of their undergraduate degrees (see Supplementary Materials). These ‘quotations’ were designed by the researchers but reflected experiences that had been reported in the pre-interviews described above. Each of the four ‘quotations’ included a few sentences about a senior-level student who had been struggling or suffering with the impostor phenomenon. Two of the four quotations were attributed to a person with a (traditionally) woman’s name, and the other two, with a (traditionally) man’s name. This was to encourage the idea that everyone can experience the impostor phenomenon. Students were provided with time to read these quotations and then were placed into small groups of 5 or 6. Students were asked to introduce themselves and were provided with three discussion points to talk about in their groups. The discussion points were:

• What experiences in the excerpts do you most relate to?
• Why do you think students often don’t realize that everyone struggles from time to time?
• If you had heard about the impostor phenomenon before this session, in what context had you heard about it?

Students were given approximately 20 min to read, introduce themselves, and discuss the quotes.

The purpose of this phase was to combat pluralistic ignorance. Students who feel that the experience of the impostor phenomenon is specific to them, or indeed their social group, may feel like they do not have a sufficient support network.

4.6. Phase 3: Reflective Exercise

The final phase of the intervention was a reflective exercise where students were asked to write a paragraph describing what advice they would give to a first-year undergraduate student who approached them and told them that they were experiencing the impostor phenomenon. This allowed students to reflect on potential techniques they could use when they were experiencing the impostor phenomenon. It also employed the ‘saying is believing’ effect as students reiterate what they have learned in the workshop.

5. Methods and Materials: The Post-Interviews

To assess the success of the intervention, we had hoped to run a series of pre/post-tests, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this was not possible. As such, we ran semi-structured interviews with 5 women (questions can be seen in the Supplementary Materials). The key themes of these questions focused on whether the students’ understanding of the impostor phenomenon had improved, their assessment of the impact of the intervention, and what we could do to improve the intervention. These interviews were 20 min long and students were paid with a £10 shopping voucher for their time. The call for participants was released to everyone who had been part of the workshop, yet only women replied. As this sample was self-selecting, we must acknowledge that it could be biased, with only those that had strong opinions on the intervention agreeing to take part in the study. In what follows, we give quotes from these post-interviews, denoting students as “Student I” to “Student V”.

Post-Interview Outcomes

In what follows ‘//’ indicates the start of a new quotation. Every student interviewed stated that they felt the workshop was positive and had helped with their understanding of the concepts. Student V suggested that the workshop happen earlier in the semester, with the follow-up student response echoing the key messages from the workshop:

“INTERVIEWER: What benefit do you think there would be in having it earlier on?

STUDENT V: It’ll just prevent students from feeling like maybe they’re not cut out for it because they feel isolated in their struggles, when actually, like, you realize afterwards that no…it’s completely normal, right?”

Student V believed that the workshop would help students who do doubt themselves and feel isolated. This demonstrates that the key message we were trying to deliver has been acknowledged by this student. This was also demonstrated by Student III:

“INTERVIEWER: Do you think that …the workshop impacted this… your sense of belonging within the Physics department in any way?

STUDENT III: I felt more like I was more present there, like I could just feel…and more like it just made it like more clearer that like, oh, everyone goes through this, like, it’s not just oh it’s only me doing this, like oh it’s not only me like that’s not understanding stuff”.

The key message that the student is not alone was reflected in the interviews and provided a source of comfort for these students.

Another positive piece of feedback we received was that students had considered the workshop in the time between the intervention and the interviews:

“INTERVIEWER: Since the workshop has there been a situation where you have thought about aspects of the workshop?

STUDENT V: I can’t remember specifically, but there have been times I’ve been feeling slightly overwhelmed or struggling with the work and I remind myself like how many other people were saying the same things as me when we were all talking about it all”.

//

“STUDENT II: Well yes… within the study group we talked about it also after and, yes, so we did talk about it and especially like sometimes for example… like… something happened and someone got a very, very good grade and someone said like “oh my god, like impostor phenomenon like kicking in””.

Students also expressed being pleased about having the chance to discuss these issues with their classmates:

INTERVIEWER: “What aspects of the workshop did you, did you find most useful? …”

STUDENT I: “I think the discussion with other classmates is very good, just… like… we can share why we find the class hard and what we can do about it”.

//

STUDENT IV: “I think the thing I liked about it was it was good to come talk to other students about it, ‘cause it is something that is never really mentioned. So, I suppose it was a good way to kind of like break the ice on that and talk about what you are all struggling with, ‘cause normally I don’t”.

//

“STUDENT III: For me there was a part where we were about to like talk to the other students and like talk about, uh, what they experience”.

The importance of this experience was likely heightened by the fact the intervention took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. This intervention was one of a limited number of opportunities for students to interact with each other in-person, as opposed to being in an online format.

One student suggested that hearing the experience of others at different levels was also useful:

INTERVIEWER: “Do you think it would be useful if this [the intervention] was an undergraduate student further up through the years, or a postgraduate student, or a member of staff?”

“STUDENT V: “I think one of the good things about the workshop was that experience…experiences were given from like all different levels, like students and more established, like scientists”.

This is positive as the intervention tried to demonstrate the ubiquity of the experience by including examples from accomplished scientists and undergraduate students.

The interview questions asked for suggestions to improve the intervention and whether having lecturers give in-person examples of their experiences would resonate more with the students. Three of the students suggested the following:

STUDENT II: “Maybe instead of having the paper of the students that were telling their feelings we could have some in-person students… both staff and students would be nice”.

//

INTERVIEWER: “If there is one thing that you could alter what would you like to see if we’re going to run it with students again next year?”

STUDENT IV: “A couple of professors could get involved…that might be handy in sharing details on how to deal with impostor syndrome”.

//

INTERVIEWER: “If we were to run the workshop for students again next year, what would you like to see change?”

STUDENT I: “Maybe it would be good to…like…include a video of a life example”.

These ideas seem productive and are something that could be easily incorporated into the intervention.

A final key point that was raised by one student was that the workshop did not inform them of measures to directly avoid the impostor phenomenon.

STUDENT I: “It would be… good to have some more measures as to how students can avoid impostor syndrome”.

Although our adapted intervention introduced the idea of creating a culture of discussion around the impostor phenomenon, Student I felt that it would be useful to have more concrete tips to try and alleviate impostor feelings.

6. Discussion

It was clear that some of the physics undergraduate students interviewed were experiencing the impostor phenomenon. Many of the students reported that they were feeling either the impostor phenomenon directly or were doubting their abilities in class. This corroborates the work of prior educational psychologists, such as Lee et al. (2021), who have found that undergraduate students often report experiences of the impostor phenomenon. This is an important consideration for future educational practice, as impostor feelings in students should be addressed to give the best possible chance for student success.

A short, 50 min intervention was introduced to try and encourage students to have discussions about their experience of the impostor phenomenon. This intervention aimed to introduce the impostor phenomenon and normalize discussions around the experience. In three phases, we aimed to give students a label for their experience (phase 1), normalize conversations around the impostor phenomenon (phase 2), and get students to think about their strategies and reflect on the impostor phenomenon (phase 3). If discussions around the impostor phenomenon are had more freely, this could have a positive impact on the student experience.

This intervention focuses on the benefits of social support in the experience of the impostor phenomenon. The benefit of having a social support network to help promote well-being is well documented; and encouraging discussion and support from others can help overcome challenges that would otherwise be difficult when faced alone (e.g., Wilcox et al., 2005). We do not expect that this intervention alone should be the only measure to address student impostor phenomenon but rather is one step of many that could be taken to help alleviate the challenges associated with the impostor phenomenon.

A clear limitation of the current intervention is that both its creation and the validation of the intervention are based on a small number of student interviews. While a quantitative evaluation of the intervention was our initial aim, we were restricted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Going forward, the intervention should be validated further using survey data from a whole class to obtain a more representative sample.

Whilst the students we interviewed to gain feedback on our adapted intervention spoke positively of it, they also made a few suggestions that will need future consideration. Firstly, a few students mentioned that more in-person, real world examples of the impostor phenomenon would help them resonate more with the concept. We have run this intervention several times since the first iteration, changing the deliverer to a member of staff familiar with the students and with the imposter phenomenon, either personally or among colleagues. The aim is to further normalize the discussion around the impostor phenomenon and demonstrate clearly to students that successful people that they know have experienced this too.

Further research may also wish to see how the impostor phenomenon varies depending on the academic context. For example, investigating whether students’ experience of impostor phenomenon changes with time or over the course of their studies could be interesting in terms of how impostor phenomenon affects students in higher education.

7. Concluding Summary

This paper proposes a short intervention based on the work of Walton and Cohen (2011). The intervention introduces the impostor phenomenon and related concepts to students, normalizes the discussion around them, and encourages students to reflect on techniques they may employ to address the impostor phenomenon as it arises. The initial feedback from students was positive, with suggestions made for further improvement.