Thiel, Jonas Jakob (2019) The production of “student voice” and its effects on academia. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University. Downloaded from: https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/622766/ Usage rights: Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Deriva- tive Works 4.0 Please cite the published version https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk THE PRODUCTION OF “STUDENT VOICE” AND ITS EFFECTS ON ACADEMIA JONAS JAKOB THIEL A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Manchester Metropolitan University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Education and Social Research Institute Faculty of Education The Manchester Metropolitan University February 2019 Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank Professor Tony Brown for his tremen- dous support with my work. He provided me with exactly the right mix- ture of praise and honest feedback throughout. He has been a superb Director of Studies and fabulous colleague who I perceived as always having my best interest at heart. Thank you so much, Tony. I would also like to thank my second supervisors, Dr David Menen- dez and Professor Elizabeth de Freitas for their intellectuality stimulat- ing conversations, constructively critical encouragement and patience. You went over and beyond to get me to this stage, and I greatly ap- preciate this. Then there are my colleagues of the primary team at Manchester Met who I am grateful to. In particular, thank you for putting up with my sometimes excessive auto-reply emails, especially towards the sub- mission deadline of my thesis. You are a really supportive and collegial team which I think is hard to come by in current neoliberal times. Last but foremost, I would like to thank my incredible family who supported me through this oftentimes tricky processes. This includes putting up with both my extensive philosophical elaborations and my bad moods. I love you and will be eternally grateful for this. Jonas Thiel Manchester 2018 2 Abstract In recent years, rating and ranking practices have proliferated, from Uber to Airbnb, from PISA to dating apps, guiding consumer opinions and preferences in a landscape of supposed choices. This thesis is centred on one such rating and ranking practice: the UK National Stu- dent Survey (NSS) which, purportedly, ascertains student voice by gathering final year student satisfaction with university courses. The NSS has had a profound impact on UK academia through its influence on university rankings and government certifications of “teaching ex- cellence”. By pitching universities against one another, so the story goes, courses will surely improve their “quality” and offer better “value for money”. Drawing on data from interviews, unstructured observations and insider narrative accounts, this thesis investigates the effects of the National Student Survey (NSS) on university lectur- ers, departments and universities. First, the NSS is shown to be a dis- ciplinary technology through exposing lecturers to panoptical observa- tions and perpetual judgements. Moreover, the NSS embodies what Foucault called neo-liberal governmentality by creating an environ- ment in which competition becomes the predominant mode of social relation. As a result, lecturers, departments and institutions are recast into disciplined and competitive subjects who are “free” to find innova- tive ways to raise student satisfaction scores. Simultaneously, the NSS governs academia by drawing powerful boundaries. This process of boundary formation is explored through Laclau’s work on antago- nism where lecturer identities emerge through their rejection of “the demanding and dissatisfied student”. This amalgam of disciplinary, neo-liberal and antagonistic logics then results in an increasing atom- isation of lecturers. Last, DeLanda’s “assemblage theory” and Barad’s agential realism seek to provide a distinctly realist take on the NSS. Notably, Laclau’s and Barad’s works do not only open possibilities of analysing antagonistic relations between students and lecturers, but could also be read as a manual on how to create connectivities be- tween stakeholders. 3 Abbreviations AL: Associate Lecturer DfB: Department for Business ECB: European Central Bank HEI: Higher Education Institution IMF: International Monetary Fund L: Lecturer NSS: National Student Survey OfS: Office for Students SL: Senior Lecturer SET: Student Evaluation of Teaching SRM: Student Representative Meeting TE: Teacher Education TEF: Teaching Excellence Framework 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................10 1.1 Research Questions ........................................................................................... 16 1.2 Overview of Chapters ........................................................................................ 17 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW: THE NATIONAL STUDENT SURVEY .....26 2.1 A Map of the Academic Literature on the National Student Survey . 29 2.2 Intra-institutional Feedback Systems ......................................................... 30 2.3 The NSS as a Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) .............................. 31 2.4 The Impact of the NSS on UK Rankings ...................................................... 34 2.5 The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) ............................................. 35 2.6 Lines of Critique on the NSS, SETs and Rankings .................................... 36 2.6.1 Grade Inflation and Course Deflation. .......................................................... 36 2.6.2 Issues of Interpretation and Validity ............................................................ 38 2.6.3 Marketisation, Managerialisation and the Student as Customer ..... 40 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY .................................................................44 3.1 Paradigmatic Considerations: DeLanda’s Social Ontology ................. 45 3.2 Data Collection and Data Analysis................................................................ 49 3.2.1 Data Collection ........................................................................................................ 52 3.2.2 Data Analysis ........................................................................................................... 57 3.3 Reflexivity and Ethics........................................................................................ 66 CHAPTER 4 THE NSS AS A DISCIPLINARY AND NEO-LIBERAL HYBRID ......70 4.1 The NSS as Disciplinary Governmentality ................................................. 72 4.1.1 Foucault’s Disciplines .......................................................................................... 72 4.1.2 The NSS as Disciplinary Technology ............................................................. 77 5 4.2 The NSS as Neo-liberal Governmentality ................................................... 86 4.2.1 A General Introduction to Neoliberalism.................................................... 87 4.2.2 Foucault’s Conception of Neo-Liberalism ................................................... 94 4.2.3 The NSS as Neo-Liberal Governmentality ............................................... 100 4.2.4 Intermediate Conclusion: Competition Everywhere!......................... 111 4.3 Conclusion: The NSS as a Neo-Liberal-Disciplinary Amalgam ........ 116 CHAPTER 5 THE NSS AS AN ANTAGONISTIC GOVERNMENTALITY ........ 123 5.1 An Introduction to Laclau’s Antagonism ................................................ 124 5.1.1 Modifications to Laclau’s Framework ....................................................... 129 5.2 The NSS as an Antagonistic Technology .................................................. 131 5.2.1 A Historical Perspective on Higher Education Populisms ............... 137 5.2.2 Contemporary UK Situation........................................................................... 140 5.3 Conclusion: Alternative Antagonisms beyond the University ........ 148 CHAPTER 6 A (NEW) MATERIALIST EXPLORATION OF THE NSS ............ 151 6.1 The NSS as a “Neo-Liberal Disciplinary Assemblage” ........................ 152 6.1.1 The NSS as a Macro Assemblage .................................................................. 154 6.1.2 Universities as Meso Assemblages ............................................................. 157 6.1.3 Internal Surveys as Component Parts of Universities ....................... 159 6.1.4 Micro Assemblages ............................................................................................ 160 6.2 The NSS as an Apparatus: an Agential Realist Contribution ............ 165 6.2.1 Introduction to Agential Realism ................................................................ 166 6.2.2 The NSS as an Intra-active Apparatus ....................................................... 177 6.2.3 Differential Gears and Solidarity ................................................................. 188 6.3 A Comparison of Agential Realism and Assemblage Theory ........... 194 6.4 --- Paradigmatic Interlude --- ...................................................................... 202 6.4.1 Methodological Implications of Barad’s Framework ......................... 203 6.4.2 Issues with Agential Realism......................................................................... 207 6 CHAPTER 7 THEORETICAL DIFFRACTIONS ........................................... 220 7.1 Foucault and Barad ......................................................................................... 220 7.2 Foucault and Laclau .......................................................................................