Year 3

June 2025

Last week I enrolled to my third year of PhD study, in what feels like a fortnight after enrolling to the second. And I can happily say that I’ve made a fair bit of progress this year. Via an unexpectedly successful call for participants (I expected to get about a dozen replies and got over 100), I was able to complete 25 interviews and collect eight gaming journals. These have been transcribed and are now ready to be coded, with this being the focus of year three’s activity. 

Other than a minor overwhelm-based wobble while transcribing (that I’ve written about here), I have managed to juggle work, study, and life pretty well, and I’m feeling generally positive at the start of this third year. However, one nagging feeling I have been trying to dismiss since enrolling back in 2022 is still with me, and it’s why (until this week), I haven’t submitted any conference proposals or written any journal articles. It’s because I feel like a fraud. 

To go back to the beginning. I am a student at Cardiff University’s School of Biosciences, and this is largely to do with my supervisor being a professor of education within the school, a colleague I got to know when he guided me through my Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) submission, and a massive fan of RPGs. I cannot ‘do’, nor do I understand biosciences. I have a grade 4 CSE in Biology and all my other qualifications are language and humanities based.  This is a scientific school, filled with STEM students with planet-sized brains and I feel like an imposter, with a little bit of ‘nepo baby’ stirred in for flavour. 

A few months ago, my supervisor suggested that I submit an abstract to a biosciences-themed education conference. It’s hosted by the University of Leeds, and a few of his PhD students are presenting. I said I’d look at the submission form he emailed, went home and opened it eight times before closing it eight times. The feeling I had three years ago when I shared my research title with other students at the induction day came flooding back. As they shared study titles such as "Scrambled Genomes": examining the methodology and goals of the Sc2.0 synthetic genome project, Is Trehalose-6-phosphate a central regulator of plant carbon partitioning?, and Sucrose signalling and its role in plant development, by the time it was my turn to speak I was certain I was going to be laughed at. So, I mumbled. “Oh, I’m just looking at unexpected experiences of students who play RPGs." What I noticed at the time but didn't process was that staff and students alike seemed genuinely interested, with a few professing to be gamers, and nodding their approval. And whenever I mention my research topic to colleagues, family, and my gaming friends they all say the same thing: that it sounds genuinely interesting and more research around possible benefits of gaming is needed. Yet I still feel like a fraud. Because they’re all just being polite, surely? 

I love my research, I really do. I’m genuinely looking forward to getting stuck into coding, and I do see the irony / dichotomy of wanting to shout about how gaming can be a power for good while feeling that gaming isn’t a ‘serious’ enough subject to warrant doctoral level study. I seem to have cognitive dissonance. And while I’m being completely honest, I’ve not even shared the link to this very website with anyone other than my supervisors, research participants, and a couple of mates, because who would want to read some middle-aged-nerd-spinster-cat-lady-type-person’s ramblings about the wellbeing benefits of slaughtering Draugr in Skyrim? 

However, things have changed in recent days. Last week, at my first supervision meeting of my third year of study, I sat with my supervisors and told them about my Imposter Syndrome. I explained that while I felt like this, I didn’t feel comfortable attending a biosciences-based conference, let alone submitting an abstract.  

“But your research topic is amazing!" they replied. “And this is an educational conference more than a biosciences conference.” 

“And my master’s is about education I guess…” I agreed.

“And one of the organisers is a massive Dungeons and Dragons fan” continued my first supervisor. “And your research topic really IS interesting.”

“Okay…” I replied with uncertainty. “I’ll take another look.” 

I went home and hammered out a 400-word proposal for a presentation examining incidental learning – the first possible theory emerging from the raw data I’ve collected so far. I then emailed both supervisors to tell them I’d submitted it, and to keep a seat free on the minibus to Leeds in case it got accepted. This was the reply from my first supervisor: 

Awesome!! People will love your stuff!!  

Buoyed by this (I really do have the most supportive and encouraging supervisors, and I need to remember this. I’ve lucked out completely), I dug around my inbox for another email I’d received in early June asking if I’d like to submit a paper to an upcoming special edition of the Behavioral Sciences Journal, 'Roleplaying Games and Wellbeing'. I replied with a big, fat "yes please!", was asked to send a title and abstract to the journal secretary, did so, and I'm now waiting on the results.  

I still think I’m a bit of a fraud, but this residual feeling will, hopefully, dissipate as belief in my research grows. As I said, I love my research question, and I really want what I produce to be a useful pebble on the beach that is games research. Everything’s going well – I’m even ahead of schedule – and I should be allowing myself to relax a little, and maybe even taking a little time out before I dive into coding. I really don’t want these self-doubts on the ‘seriousness’ of my research take the edge off. 

Buckle up Ferriday. It’s year three, it’s coding time, and you’ve still got to finish playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 before you can even THINK about starting Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. Oh, or climbing the mountain of coding you need to do!