‘I’m happy, and I’m passing. That’s all that matters!’: exploring discourses of university academic success through linguistic analysis

Abstract

‘Student success’ is a key driver in higher education policy and funding. Institutions often adopt a particular lens of success, emphasising ‘retention and completion’, ‘high grades’, ‘employability after graduation’ discourses, which place high value on human capital or fiscal outcomes. We explored how students themselves articulated notions of success to understand how these meanings aligned with the implicit value system perpetuated by neoliberal higher education systems. Qualitative data collected from 240 survey responses in the first phase of a study, were analysed using Appraisal, a linguistic framework to systematically categorise evaluative language choices. This article focuses on questions eliciting students’ articulations of success. Neoliberal discourses were challenged by these students, who were first-in-family at university, with success expressed in a personal and generational sense rather than solely meritocratic terms.

Keywords:

• Student success
• Appraisal
• first-in-family
• neoliberal discourse
• higher education; discourse analysis

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the support of the Appraisal Analysis group in offering advice on some of the analysis and interpretations, particularly Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh, Lucia Abbamonte and Dr Alexanne Don.

Notes

1. APPRAISAL appears in capitals, sub-systems (such as Attitude) and categories are capitalized to denote technical usage.

2. In Australia there are six identified equity groups that include students: with a disability; from lower socioeconomic backgrounds; from rural and isolated areas; from a non-English-speaking background; women in non-traditional areas of study; and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

3. As the time of data collection was close to the mid-point of the academic year, those who indicated they were in their second year of study are included in this analysis as they would be at the midway point in their undergraduate degree (i.e. usually 3 years in Australia).

4. Note: Graduation lexis is underlined; meaning upscaled indicated as: ↑ / and downscaled as: ↓. Participant code and summary demographic information is also included.

5. LSES: Low Socio-Economic Status -participants self-selected this category as indicative of their background or circumstances.

6. Analysis shown in [square brackets].

7. Note: no/unsure responses have been added to the demographic information.

8. Two of the three Appraisal categories - Attitude in particular, and Graduation - are included in the figure above as these were relevant to the data analysed. The third category of Engagement was not used in the analysis.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant (DP170100705).

This research has been funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant (DP170100705).