Impostor phenomenon, academic self-efficacy, and persistence among African-American female undergraduate STEM majors

Despite a push from the government, academia, and industry to increase the number of STEM-educated professionals in the United States, the number of college students pursuing STEM majors and completing STEM degrees is inadequate. One of the causes of low retention in STEM is the impostor phenomenon, a feeling of fraudulence experienced in high-achieving individuals. The subjects of Clance and Imes's (1978) initial research on the impostor phenomenon involved mostly Caucasian women in graduate school, and there is little research on the impostor phenomenon focused on minority students. Therefore, the current study expanded on the research by focusing on how the impostor phenomenon and academic self-efficacy affect the likelihood of persistence in STEM in a group of African-American female undergraduate students. The study used quantitative non-experimental correlational design and cross-sectional surveys for data collection. A total of 113 African-American female undergraduate STEM students from two public universities in North Carolina completed a combined survey, which was comprised of the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale, the Academic Milestones Self-Efficacy Scale, and demographic information. Multinomial logistic regression analyses were performed to search for relationships between the impostor phenomenon, academic self-efficacy, and the likelihood of persistence in STEM majors. Results showed a significant negative relationship between the impostor phenomenon and academic self-efficacy, and a statistically significant predictive relationship between academic self-efficacy and the likelihood of persistence in STEM. Recommendations included research on the impostor phenomenon and other variables and STEM-focused programming.