Jan McArthur in her work “Towards a Moral University: Horkheimer’s Commitment to the “Vicissitudes of Human Fate” argues that modern universities are distorted by neoliberal pressures to adopt a business approach to delivering learning “experiences” (McArthur, 2019, p. 133). As a result, human activities and well-being are reduced to the outcomes that fit selective economic realms, thus can be easily measured in numbers. The requirement of measuring students’ learning “experiences” distorts the moral functioning of the university by the “necessary fact of winners and losers” (McArthur, 2019, p. 139). This neoliberal climate is referred to by Jan McArthur as a pathology that distorts the higher education institutions' opportunity to fulfil the potential within and outside its boundaries (McArthur, 2019, p. 134).

Jan McArthur articulates a clear call for rethinking our understanding of the learning outcomes. She points out that the existing assessment methods that determine students’ progress through the university studies are “highly individual and competitively driven” (McArthur 2019, p. 140). Indeed, students’ academic progress in a neoliberal society has been associated with students’ retention, grades, rates of employment, etc. (GOV.UK, 2014). However, Jan continues, the way we assess the learning process and its outcomes is a powerful instrument of students’ learning which can enhance the flourishing of the individual and contribute to greater social justice within and beyond the university (McArthur, 2016). Therefore, rather than limiting the emancipatory capacity of learning by the meritocratic approach, educators should seek for a more inclusive understanding of the concept “success”.

The common limitation of the previous research on students’ academic success in online education is that it has been discussed via notions of attrition, retention or dropout, mainly from the perspective of scholars, educators or policy makers and within the predominant neoliberal discourse. Responding to this limitation requires an understanding of what it means for the learners themselves to be successful. Although adult students’ online learning experiences have been discussed in the past (see Rotar (2018) for the summary of the past empirical research), little attention has been paid to examination of academic success in the students’ voices and from their own perspective (see O’Shea & Delahunty (2018) for the students’ perspectives on success) or the need for alternative ways to evaluate students’ academic success (see McArthur (2016) for the alternative conceptualization of assessment). An investigation of the students’ perspective is something that is missing from the research canvas. Yet, to fully explore the concept of academic success in online higher education, the consideration of the students’ view is critical. Their opinion adds to a better understanding of the outcomes of learning that are valuable for an individual and nurturing for the social justice within and beyond the educational institution.

My doctoral research project aimed to question the simplistic understanding of the concept” success” based on the accounts of adult students. The question that guided my investigation was: What are qualitative differences in adult students’ perceptions of success? Through the in-depth conversations, students were able to talk what success meant to them in a way they wanted and felt comfortable. As a result, I was able to uncover the nuances of variation of perceptions of academic success from adult students’ perspective and explore the nature of these variations. I also examined the contextual background against which success is conceptualized, showing the situatedness of adult students’ reflection in their motivation for learning and an overall learning experience.

In their conceptualizations, students as a group showed the progression from a more simplistic way of conceptualizing success to a more advanced one. The hierarchically inclusive structure of the different ways of conceptualizing academic success showed that differing perspectives are not mutually exclusive. Rather it suggests that a more complex, emancipatory perspective on success (success as self-actualisation) can embrace the more simplistic ones: success in a form of a better life and work opportunities and an opportunity to join an elite community of learners, as improvement in one’s work, success as understanding in action, and success as measured by formal criteria. Therefore, it does not mean that the students who perceive success in a more powerful and complex way do not value high grades or degree certificates. Rather, their focus and expectation from the learning process go beyond the neoliberal meritocratic frame and tend towards personal development and nourishment.

The findings of my study support the emerging alternative discussion on the complexity and subjectivity of the term success by providing a description of the layered conceptualisation of this notion from postgraduate students’ perspectives. Although there were students who valued “traditional” learning outcomes on the other side of the arrow were students for whom academic success was self-actualization, or, in students’ words, an opportunity for personal development and broadening horizons. For adult students in my study success was clearly a more expansive concept than a mere meritocratic definition commonly employed by educational institutions. Although for adult students grades and milestones were important, for them, the success was also associated with the understanding in action, an improvement in one’s work, better life and work opportunities, as well as an opportunity to join an elite community of learners, and grow and self-actualize. Such extended understanding of success is obviously more than passing the assignments and getting a new job after graduation.

Concluding thoughts

The higher education institutions can and must offer to their students more than a degree and an opportunity to achieve on the labour market. It can support their growth and development, a tendency that rests naturally within the individual and determines students’ psychological well-being (Ryan & Deci, 2010). In the area of adult education and online education, a widening participation agenda somehow marketized the view on the results of the learning process. Walker (2008) warns that when it is not too late, we need to focus not on widening participation, but instead on widening capabilities for the learners in the alignment with their valued outcomes. This will not only allow learners to flourish, but also will satisfy their inner needs needed for well-being and stable functioning.

By contrast, if students’ valued outcomes will be continuously thwarted by the educational system and its meritocratic approach, there will be concerns related to student satisfaction, motivation and academic progress (Ryan & Deci, 2010). My argument invites online higher education institutions to re-evaluate their “educational offer” and encourages them to share and support students’ values in their educational journey. Although students do value the degree and an opportunity to benefit on the labour market, what was additionally emphasised in their reflection on success is competence in their own contests, relatedness to the community they value, autonomy to choose paths for their professional and personal development.

Phenomenographic methodology allowed me not only to embed the principle of diversity into the research design, but also articulate the expansive awareness of what academic success meant to adult students in their online postgraduate programmes. It also provided an analytical frame to uncover in-depth and in more nuance he qualitative differences in adult students’ perceptions of success and the background against which these differences are discerned. HE educational institutions are invited to reflect on the diversity of that students’ population and to embrace and work with students’ aspirations rather than aspirations of a highly commercialized sector. Therefore, a more inclusive understanding of the concept “success” is needed, and the various forms of success should be articulated and celebrated by universities.

Olga Rotar is a PhD student in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University.

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