Exploring the occurrence of the Impostor Phenomenon and level of self-efficacy amongst students in university courses dominated by the opposite gender

Abstract

The impostor phenomenon (IP) refers to a feeling of intellectual inadequacy which is especially prevalent in university contexts and leads to high attrition rates (Parkman & Beard, 2009), depression (McGregor, Gee, & Posey, 2008), and anxiety (Fraenza, 2016) among students. The impostor phenomenon is negatively related to career development, as sufferers may fail to plan for their careers or to create appropriate strategies to reach their goals (Neureiter & Traut-Mattausch, 2016). The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether participants enrolled in a university course which is dominated by the opposite gender are more likely to experience the impostor phenomenon. This study specifically looked at engineering and nursing undergraduate students. The objectives of this study included exploring the relationship between the impostor phenomenon and self-efficacy, as well as exploring the occurrence thereof among participants in either traditional or non-traditional university courses. This quantitative study (N = 214) made use of a factorial design and data were collected through the use of the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (Clance, 1985) and the Career-Decision Self-Efficacy Scale, short form (Betz, Klein, & Taylor, 1996). Results indicated that, as expected, women who are enrolled in male-dominated engineering courses do score higher on the Impostor Phenomenon Scale than both men and women in traditional courses. However, this study did not find differences in the level of career-decisions self-efficacy between the male and female samples, regardless of the gender composition of their specific courses. The researcher postulates that this may be due to the sheer determination of the women in atypical courses to succeed and persist in their studies. The researcher also found a negative relationship between IP and self-efficacy.