Introducing the Graduate Student Voice: Perceptions of Academic Success as Shared by Students at a South African–Based Private Higher Education Institution

The notion of student success in an academic context has garnered much interest over the years, resulting in a multitude of perspectives by which success is defined, understood, and measured. Historically, the institutional measure of success has been most prevalent, namely that success is directly linked to grades. More recently, however, attention has been given to the student voice, providing a richer context to the discourse. This study engaged with graduate students from a South African-based institution to understand whether their notion of success differs from those of graduate students represented in recent studies. This qualitative study consisted of three focus groups in which 12 graduate students shared their ideas regarding success. The data from these engagements were interrogated using thematic analysis. Three sub-themes emerged that highlighted success as being academic in nature, reliant on support, and linked to internal traits such as perseverance and self-discipline. While the findings add to the discourse around success from the graduate students’ perspectives, it was interesting to note that while the participants spoke to the importance of peer, lecturer, and family support, and recognised the role of internal factors such as perseverance, self-discipline, and achieving a study– life balance, their views on what it means to be successful did not differ in any significant way from those of undergraduate students referenced in this study.