“I feel like a fraud”: reducing impostor phenomenon in graduate students through literacy interventions

Impostor phenomenon affects highly capable individuals in a number of creative fields, including graduate education. This mixed-methods project had two purposes: (1) to identify the ways in which graduate students struggle with impostor phenomenon feelings; and (2) to determine if four literacy-based workshops would reduce impostor feelings in the graduate student participants. Grounded in literacy theory and pedagogy, these four interventions identified impostor phenomenon (Intervention I), explored disciplinary and academic literacy strategies (Intervention II), and taught graduate students how to read academic journal articles (Intervention III) and write literature reviews (Intervention IV). The data indicated that the literacy-based interventions were successful in increasing the participants’ perceived success in their graduate programs and decreasing impostor phenomenon feelings.