Dissertation Proposal Announcement Ed.D. Program: Amber Lee “Investigating the Drivers of Persistence and Motivation among Female Doctoral Students in Mathematics”

This study explores the factors that drive persistence and motivation among female doctoral students in mathematics. This research will focus on how female doctoral students in math experience the Impostor Phenomenon (IP), despite evident academic preparedness and achievement (Clance, 1978; Clance & O’Toole, 1987) possibly at higher rates than their male counterparts (Chakraverty & Rishi, 2022; Cisco, 2020; Cohen & McConnell, 2019; Craddock et al., 2011; Good et al., 2012; Handforth, 2022). Grounded in Tinto’s Theory of Student Departure and Eccles’ Expectancy-Value Theory, the research explores the intersection of IP and faculty mentorship that impact the success of female doctoral students (Hoang, 2013; Huang & Brainard, 2001; Kumar & Jagacinski, 2006; Lazarides et al., 2021; Maher et al., 2004; Piatek-Jimenez, 2015; Rosenzweig et al., 2019).

This qualitative study seeks to explore how IP and faculty mentorship impact students’ academic and social engagement, motivation, and long-term persistence in their doctoral programs (Brown & Watson, 2010; Capodilupo et al., 2010). The connection to the Impostor Phenomenon and expectancy, the belief that they are capable of achieving academic success, provides a critical psychological perspective to the research, as IP has been shown to affect academic self-confidence and self-efficacy, leading to higher attrition rates in mathematics Ph.D. programs (Handforth, 2022; Herzig, 2002, 2004; Kessel, 2014; Tao & Gloria, 2019). Using semi-structured interviews and focus groups, this research seeks to collect the experiences of female doctoral students to better understand the drivers to their persistence and motivation.

The findings will contribute to the existing literature on how IP manifests at the doctoral level and how it intersects with faculty mentorship to identify strategies to improve female doctoral students’ persistence and success in mathematics.