Drewery Merritt L, Cooper Jade V, Waliczek Tina M, Wickersham Tryon A
Department of Agricultural Sciences, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA.
Department of Animal Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
Transl Anim Sci. 2023 Jan 9;7(1):txad001. doi: 10.1093/tas/txad001. eCollection 2023 Jan.
Sense of belonging is a student's sense of feeling accepted, valued, and included by others in their discipline. Imposter syndrome is self-perceived intellectual fraud in areas of success. Sense of belonging and imposter syndrome can influence behavior and well-being and are linked to academic and career outcomes. Our objective was to evaluate if a 5-d tour of the beef cattle industry changed college students' sense of belonging and imposter tendencies with a focus on ethnicity/race. Procedures involving human subjects were approved by the Texas State University (TXST) IRB (#8309). Students from TXST and Texas A&M University (TAMU) attended a beef cattle industry tour in the Texas Panhandle in May 2022. Identical pre- and post-tests were administered immediately before and after the tour. Statistical analyses were conducted with SPSS v.26. Independent sample -tests were used to evaluate the change from pre- to post-survey and one-way ANOVA was used to evaluate the effect of ethnicity/race. Students ( = 21) were mostly female (81%); attended TAMU (67%) or TXST (33%); and were White (52%), Hispanic (33%), or Black (14%). "Hispanic" and "Black" were combined as a single variable to analyze differences between White and ethnoracial minority students. Before the tour, there was a difference ( = 0.05) in sense of belonging in agriculture between White (4.33 ± 0.16) and ethnoracial minority (3.73 ± 0.23) students such that White students had stronger belonging. There was no change ( = 0.55) in White students' sense of belonging as a result of the tour, from 4.33 ± 0.16 to 4.39 ± 0.44. However, there was a change ( ≤ 0.01) in ethnoracial minority students' sense of belonging, from 3.73 ± 0.23 to 4.37 ± 0.27. There was no change ( = 0.36) in imposter tendencies from the pre-test (58.76 ± 2.46) to the post-test (60.52 ± 2.79). Ultimately, participating in the tour increased ethnoracial minority, but not White, students' sense of belonging and did not impact imposter syndrome tendencies across or within ethnicity/race. One benefit of implementing experiential learning opportunities in dynamic social environments is the potential to improve students' sense of belonging, especially in disciplines and careers where ethnoracial minority people are underrepresented.
归属感是学生在其学科领域中感受到被他人接受、重视和包容的一种感觉。冒名顶替综合症是在成功领域中自我感知的智力欺诈。归属感和冒名顶替综合症会影响行为和幸福感，并与学业和职业成果相关联。我们的目标是评估为期5天的肉牛行业参观之旅是否会改变大学生的归属感和冒名顶替倾向，重点关注种族/民族。涉及人类受试者的程序已获得德克萨斯州立大学（TXST）机构审查委员会（#8309）的批准。来自TXST和德克萨斯农工大学（TAMU）的学生于2022年5月参加了德克萨斯州狭长地带的肉牛行业参观之旅。在参观前后立即进行了相同的前测和后测。使用SPSS v.26进行统计分析。独立样本t检验用于评估调查前到调查后的变化，单因素方差分析用于评估种族/民族的影响。学生（n = 21）大多为女性（81%）；就读于TAMU（67%）或TXST（33%）；并且是白人（52%）、西班牙裔（33%）或黑人（14%）。“西班牙裔”和“黑人”被合并为一个单一变量，以分析白人和少数族裔学生之间的差异。在参观之前，白人（4.33 ± 0.16）和少数族裔（3.73 ± 0.23）学生在农业领域的归属感存在差异（p = 0.05），白人学生的归属感更强。参观后，白人学生的归属感没有变化（p = 0.55），从4.33 ± 0.16变为4.39 ± 0.44。然而，少数族裔学生的归属感发生了变化（p ≤ 0.01），从3.73 ± 0.23变为4.37 ± 0.27。从测试前（58.76 ± 2.46）到测试后（60.52 ± 2.79），冒名顶替倾向没有变化（p = 0.36）。最终，参加这次参观之旅增加了少数族裔学生而非白人学生的归属感，并且没有影响不同种族/民族或种族/民族内部的冒名顶替综合症倾向。在动态社会环境中实施体验式学习机会的一个好处是有可能提高学生的归属感，特别是在少数族裔代表性不足的学科和职业中。
