Exploring the impact of metaphor on the student experience of articulation

UK-wide government targets for widening participation in further and higher education institutions have seen increased numbers of students following routes to university which depart from the ‘typical’ pathway of school to university. There is a range of alternative routes, one being articulation, whereby students who complete relevant qualifications are considered for entry into an advanced level of university study. Learning Developers are often tasked with supporting specific student groups, such as articulating students; however, research on articulation is limited, and the student perspective is often absent from discussions. Research which does exist appears to focus on transition as a key area of concern, highlighting specific literacies and attributes as potentially lacking in this group. In addition to indications of deficit, discourses on articulation frequently employ metaphors such as ‘spoon-feeding’ to document the student experience and idealise education as a ‘smooth journey’. Metaphor theorists such as Ortony (1975), Reddy (1979) and Lakoff and Johnson (1980) argue that metaphors are powerful actors in discourse, with significant consequences for thinking and action. Drawing on these theorists, this paper reports on a study undertaken with articulating students, foregrounding their voices and exploring the metaphors they choose to describe their experiences. Visual methods were utilised, with students producing insightful drawings, using an array of metaphors to depict a complex and at times, contradictory experience. Findings suggest that metaphors appear to impact how education is both conceptualised and experienced, with implications for how Learning Developers engage with and support articulation.