The Development and Validation of a Culturally Informed Impostor Phenomenon Scale for Black Students

Researchers are acknowledging and acting on the need for more impostor phenomenon (IP) research with diverse people, specifically with Black students. Notably, the increased attention has led to the development of two theoretical frameworks on IP in Black students (Bernard & Neblett, 2018; Stone et al., 2018). However, a culturally informed quantitative measure has yet to be developed, even though researchers have suggested that the available impostor scales are likely not capturing all aspects of impostor phenomenon in Black students (Bravata, et al., 2020; Schulze, 2020). This dissertation is presented in two chapters: a systematized review and a scale development study. The first chapter is a systematized review, the goal of which was to further uncover the unifying themes across what is known and unknown in the impostor phenomenon literature as it relates to Black students in higher education. A total of 12 empirical articles were included in the review and after thorough analysis, two analytical themes were generated: (1) Measurement and Research Paradigms and (2) Racial Influences of Impostor Phenomenon. In the second, chapter I conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) study for developing and validating the Black Impostor Phenomenon Scale (BIPS): a scale based on the theoretical framework presented in Stone et al. (2018) that details the distinct cultural characteristics of impostor stress in Black students. Specifically, an oversaturated pool of items was developed based on the central tenets and themes from Stone et al. (2018). The goals of this project area as follows: (1) develop a quantitative measure of IP for Black college students, (2) understand the underlying factor structure of the impostor scale, and (3) expand the utility of the central tenants presented in Stone et al. (2018). I expect there to be five emergent factors from the EFA, consistent with the theoretical framework. This research aims to develop the initial scale through expert review and use EFA to determine the scale’s factor structure. This study is innovative in that it will be the first known culturally informed systematized review of IP and the first culturally informed EFA of IP for Black students.