Secondary School Students' Perceptions of Success: A Qualitative Pupil Voice Study

Success is usually viewed as the primary goal of education, and it is frequently used to assess both the school’s performance and students’ achievement. Typically, in mainstream education, success is viewed through the lens of academic achievement and examination results. But the concept of success is much more complex and often subjective, relying on context and the perception of the one defining it. According to research, there is no single universal definition of student success, and students and teachers often hold very different perspectives on what success means. (Weatherton and Schussler, 2021). Given this understanding, it is important to investigate how students perceive success, as they might hold a very different perspective from teachers or other adults and value things beyond academic achievement.

The aim of this study was to investigate and understand how secondary school students perceive success through a pupil voice approach. The study's findings distinctly showed that students perceive success through multiple lenses and that their perceptions are far more complex. Students see success beyond academic achievement and examination results, valuing factors such as improvement, personal growth, understanding, confidence, competence, and teacher praise. Moreover, many students suggested that their perception of success had changed significantly as they have grown older and been exposed to a wider range of experiences and interactions.