School of Psychology & Neuroscience: Fostering a sense of belonging
Collaboration: School of Psychology & Neuroscience and School of Physics & Astronomy
Research team: Dr Ewan Bottomley, Dr Antje Kohnle, Dr Ken Mavor, Dr Paula Miles, Professor Vivienne Wild.
Only got five minutes? Check out the top tips
- Students’ beliefs in their ability can decrease if the task seems unmanageable or too large to tackle. Helping the student break up the task into more manageable chunks can help make a large task (e.g. a research report or project) seem more achievable.
- Our research suggests that those who feel recognised by their tutors and lecturers are more likely to report higher confidence in their ability. Students also reported that when they felt like others viewed them as a physicist, they too viewed themselves as a physicist to a greater degree. Trying to elucidate the ways in which you see your students as budding researchers may be an important aspect of their identity in a discipline.
- In our intervention, we found that highlighting instances where notable physicists shared their experiences of imposter phenomenon resonated with the students and made them realise that even established physicists can experience these feelings. As such, sharing your candid experiences in your own career may help students to feel better about their own experiences.
To address imposter phenomenon (commonly referred to as imposter syndrome) in women in undergraduate physics, this research team has created a short, one-off intervention. The intervention aims to make students realise that they are often not alone in feeling imposter phenomenon and to encourage them to reach out to one another when they are experiencing these feelings.
The intervention takes 45 minutes and consists of three phases:
- A short introduction to imposter phenomenon, designed to give students labels that they can attribute to their experience. ‘Feeling that you do not belong’ or ‘are not smart enough to be on a course’ may be a threat to a student’s sense of identity within that discipline. It is a false belief that renowned physicists are naturally very intelligent and therefore it is commonly regarded as a requirement for budding physicists. However, in reality, most physicists have to work incredibly hard and often experience aspects of imposter phenomenon. Therefore, the intervention aims to normalise the experience of imposter phenomenon and make clear to students that finding the course difficult or struggling with concepts does not preclude them from being a physicist (or biologist, psychologist etc.)
- A short discussion with question prompts, designed to get the students discussing their experiences of imposter phenomenon and to get them to realise how common the experience is amongst other students.
- A short, written piece where the students are asked to give advice to future students about how to deal with imposter phenomenon. This is to get students to reflect on what they would do if they were to experience imposter phenomenon.
This is an easy to implement intervention which is now being adapted to try and address imposter phenomenon in cohorts beyond undergraduate physics.
Resources
- Watch this video about the research: Interventions to encourage a sense of belonging
- Listen to the ‘Belong in HE’ podcast.