Mark Langan - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Mark Langan

Higher Education, Mar 29, 2023

This study explores dissatisfaction and neutrality metrics from 12 years of a national-level unde... more This study explores dissatisfaction and neutrality metrics from 12 years of a national-level undergraduate student survey. The notion of dissatisfaction is much less prevalent in the narratives surrounding student survey outcomes, and the underpinning metrics are seldom considered. This is despite an increasingly vociferous debate about 'value for money' of higher education and the positioning of students as consumers in a marketised sector. We used machine learning methods to explore over 2.7 million national survey outcomes from 154 institutions to describe year-on-year stability in the survey items that best predicted dissatisfaction and neutrality, together with their similarity to known metric predictors of satisfaction. The widely publicised annual increases in student 'satisfaction' are shown to be the result of complex reductions in the proportions of disagreement and neutrality across different survey dimensions. Due to the widespread use of survey metrics in university league tables, we create an anonymised, illustrative table to demonstrate how UK institutional rankings would have differed if dissatisfaction metrics had been the preferred focus for reporting. We conclude by debating the tensions of balancing the provision of valuable information about dissatisfaction, with perpetuating negative impacts that derive from this important subset of the survey population.

Nurse Education Today, Feb 1, 2017

Background: Student experience is an international concern and recent research has focused on ini... more Background: Student experience is an international concern and recent research has focused on initiatives to improve students' learning experiences and ultimately reduce attrition levels. Objective: To determine similarities and differences between students' perceptions of their learning experiences between 2011 and 2015 in relation to campus-based learning, placementbased learning and personal circumstances. Design: A repeat online survey in 2011 and 2015; using a questionnaire developed from thematic analysis of narrative interviews with a subsample of the target population. Settings: Nine universities in the North West of England. Participants: A total of 1080 students completed the survey in 2011 and 1983 students in 2015 from a target population of all students studying on commissioned pre-registration healthcare education programmes. Methods: An online survey was made available to all undergraduate students studying on Health Education funded programmes within the region and survey respondents were invited to give demographic information and rate their agreement to statements on four-point Likert-type responses. Results: Responses to a repeat survey of healthcare studying in the North West of England in 2015 were strikingly similar overall to those of an origianl 2011 survey. Although the students were positive overall about their experiences, a number were dissatisfied with some aspects of their experiences -particularly in relation to initial support on campus and whilst studying on placement. Four years on from the original survey, despite a considerable investment in improving students' experiences across the region, there appears to be little change in students' perceptions of their learning experiences Conclusion: In the short-term monitoring of student experience needs to be continued; and links to attrition (potential or actual) noted and acted upon. However, given that attrition from these courses has been a long-term problem and the complexity of its resolution a recurrent finding in the literature; new ways of framing and resolving the problem need to be considered.

Planet, Dec 1, 2005

Involvement in the development of marking criteria did not influence students' grades as speakers... more Involvement in the development of marking criteria did not influence students' grades as speakers, but participants awarded lower slightly lower grades (~1.5% lower than those who did not help to develop the criteria).

Journal of Further and Higher Education, Feb 19, 2015

Institutions are understandably interested in the profile of their own reputations based upon pub... more Institutions are understandably interested in the profile of their own reputations based upon publicly available data about student experiences. The UK's National Student Survey (NSS) metrics are integrated into several 'Good University' calculations, whereas teaching teams most often use the survey's text comments to change practices, rather than the metrics directly. There is little information about how messages from the national survey's text comments relate to the accompanying numerical ratings, partly because text comments are confidential to the institution and unavailable for wide-scale research. We categorised institutional NSS text comments into themes that mirrored those of the original questionnaire. Comparisons were made between frequencies of thematic comments and the national ratings of satisfaction for several subject areas. For the first time we demonstrate broad agreement between comments about measures of teaching staff and course organisation with the performance of the subject areas (compared to metrics of their national counterparts). These findings are consistent with previous quantitative models predicting the most important factors that most influence overall satisfaction ratings. We intend this study to be a catalyst for other institutions to explore their non-publicly available, textual returns in a similar way. The outcomes of this type of work are pertinent to all countries that use large-scale surveys. However, institutions will need to release findings to a public audience if we are to gain a national/international perspective on this key linkage between publicly available metrics and the associated text comments.

Studies in Higher Education, 2018

Nursing Inquiry, 2019

The early withdrawal of students from healthcare education programmes, particularly nursing, is a... more The early withdrawal of students from healthcare education programmes, particularly nursing, is an international concern and, despite considerable investment, retention rates have remained stagnant. Here, a regional study of healthcare student retention is used as an example to frame the challenge of student attrition using a concept from policy development, wicked problem theory. This approach allows the consideration of student attrition as a complex problem derived from the interactions of many interrelated factors, avoiding the pitfalls of small‐scale interventions and over‐simplistic assumptions of cause and effect. A conceptual framework is proposed to provide an approach to developing actions to reduce recurrent investment in interventions that have previously proved ineffective at large scale. We discuss how improvements could be achieved through integrated stakeholder involvement and acceptance of the wicked nature of attrition as a complex and ongoing problem.

Education Sciences, 2013

Many countries use national-level surveys to capture student opinions about their university expe... more Many countries use national-level surveys to capture student opinions about their university experiences. It is necessary to interpret survey results in an appropriate context to inform decision-making at many levels. To provide context to national survey outcomes, we describe patterns in the ratings of science and engineering subjects from the UK's National Student Survey (NSS). New, robust statistical models describe relationships between the Overall Satisfaction' rating and the preceding 21 core survey questions. Subjects exhibited consistent differences and ratings of "Teaching", "Organisation" and "Support" were thematic predictors of "Overall Satisfaction" and the best single predictor was "The course was well designed and running smoothly". General levels of satisfaction with feedback were low, but questions about feedback were ultimately the weakest predictors of "Overall Satisfaction". The UK's universities affiliated groupings revealed that more traditional "1994" and "Russell" groups over-performed in a model using the core 21 survey questions to predict "Overall Satisfaction", in contrast to the under-performing newer universities in the Million+ and Alliance groups. Findings contribute to the debate about "level playing fields" for the interpretation of survey outcomes worldwide in terms of differences between subjects, institutional types and the questionnaire items.

Applied Entomology and Zoology, 2004

Despite considerable research into the impacts of herbivores on plant gas exchange activity, ther... more Despite considerable research into the impacts of herbivores on plant gas exchange activity, there is minimal knowledge of photosynthesis and transpiration of plants at the time arthropod oviposition occurs. During oviposition, the small white butterfly (Pieris rapae L.) use visual and chemosensory cues to allocate most eggs to larger, more nutritional host plants (Brassica oleracea L.) with characteristically higher gas exchange activity. However, it is not known whether biogenic gradients of CO 2 or H 2 O have a direct influence on host plant choice. During caged assays, watered cabbage plants with higher transpiration/photosynthetic rates were preferred, but only during extreme water deficits that led to wilting. Shorter assays permitted gas exchange to be manipulated but did not reveal preferences for plants exposed to elevated levels of water or PAR and, therefore, with higher gas exchange activity. These findings support previous field observations that there is no mechanistic basis to female preferences for plants with higher gas exchange activity, although associated characteristics relating to the plant status (in this case superior water relations) were preferred. The implications of using caged assays (some of short duration) to decipher egg-laying preferences are considered.

Higher Education, Apr 27, 2019

The purpose of this study is to use machine learning and exploratory data analysis to interrogate... more The purpose of this study is to use machine learning and exploratory data analysis to interrogate patterns of metrics from a national-level student survey. Analysis of over 1.8 million returns detected long-term stability of the predictors of student satisfaction, with survey items relating to course management and teaching being consistently most influential. All metric outputs increased over the survey period; however, the rates of increase of several dimensions including Overall Satisfaction decreased markedly in the most recent years to a point of levelling off. There was also a growing similarity in an institution of outcomes at a national level. This study contributes new insights into the influential survey instrument, through rigorous determination of the most influential survey items, descriptions of the changes in variability between institutions, and exploration of the importance of patterns of outliers at the extremes of the metric outputs. We also identify a rapidly growing spike in total satisfaction at a broad course level and highlight how this is inconsistent with a customer satisfaction model. We conclude by considering the challenges of the use of national-level student surveys for the management of student satisfaction in higher education.

Journal of Insect Behavior, 2001

Few studies have investigated insect egg-laying preferences in relation to photosynthesis or tran... more Few studies have investigated insect egg-laying preferences in relation to photosynthesis or transpiration of their host plants. It has been suggested that intravarietal preferences of the small white butterfly (Pieris rapae L.: Pieridae) include larger plants with characteristically higher transpiration rates. Interestingly this species, like many other Lepidoptera, may detect biogenic CO2 gradients associated with photosynthesis. We studied egg-laying preferences

Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, 2001

Teaching in Higher Education, 2018

In an increasingly neoliberal Higher Education sector, there is increased pressure on institution... more In an increasingly neoliberal Higher Education sector, there is increased pressure on institutions to enhance learner engagement and student satisfaction. Many academics believe that students expect their university learning experiences to be enjoyable, and discourses of game-based learning reflect this, with a dominant narrative highlighting the fun of educational games. Whether students expect learning to be fun or see a relationship between fun and games is under-explored. To address this, we investigated student perceptions of fun in Higher Education using a thematic network analysis based on data from 37 in-depth interviews with undergraduate students. Here, we highlight five themes that encapsulate what students perceive to be a fun learning experience: stimulating pedagogy; lecturer engagement; a safe learning space; shared experience; and a low-stress environment. These aspects are not unique to games, and we conclude by considering the relationship between educational games and fun, and alternative playful approaches.

Senior Lecturer in Learning and Teaching Technology Centre for Learning and Teaching Background

Journal of clinical nursing, Jan 17, 2017

To explore the perceived unfairness experienced by student nurses during their undergraduate clin... more To explore the perceived unfairness experienced by student nurses during their undergraduate clinical placements. It is important that student nurses feel supported by practice staff during their clinical placement education experiences. However, it has been reported that learners can feel ignored, unsupported and bullied by others in the clinical environment and this has a detrimental effect on their learning. It is important to understand the student nurse perspective and explore ways in which their feelings of belongingness might be enhanced in the clinical area. A descriptive narrative approach was utilised to explore the qualitative data generated by the survey and interviews. Limited closed-question survey data were acquired to explore a selection of quantified survey responses about placements and mentorship. A survey was conducted with 1425 student nurses from adult and mental health degree nursing pathways, across 9 institutions in the North West of England, UK. Unstructure...

Fieldwork is generally regarded as an essential component of most bioscience degree programmes an... more Fieldwork is generally regarded as an essential component of most bioscience degree programmes and is held in high regard by practitioners in many disciplines . Fieldwork can take many different forms. Based on the definition of Lonergan & Andreson, (1988 p. 64) that fieldwork may be "any arena or zone within a subject where, outside the constraints of the four walls classroom setting, supervised learning can take place via first hand experience", Gold et al. (1991) described five categories:

Planet, 2001

This pilot project suggests strongly that the initiation of writers' retreats may have the potent... more This pilot project suggests strongly that the initiation of writers' retreats may have the potential to impact upon the daily writing habits of university faculty, to unlock positive, formative dimensions of academic communities and to energise the culture of scholarship in research and teaching to which we should subscribe.

Bioscience Education, 2011

Quality Street

Bioscience Education, 2012

In undergoing this life, many people always try to do and get the best. New knowledge, experience... more In undergoing this life, many people always try to do and get the best. New knowledge, experience, lesson, and everything that can improve the life will be done. However, many people sometimes feel confused to get those things. Feeling the limited of experience and sources to be better is one of the lacks to own. However, there is a very simple thing that can be done. This is what your teacher always manoeuvres you to do this one. Yeah, reading is the answer. Reading a book as this quality street and other references can enrich your life quality. How can it be?

Impact of cypermethrin on feeding behaviour and mortality of the spiderPardosa amentata in arenas with artificial ‘vegetation’

Pest Management Science, 2006

Pesticides can modify invertebrate movement and feeding behaviour which could reduce predation in... more Pesticides can modify invertebrate movement and feeding behaviour which could reduce predation in agroecosystems. Previous assays have exposed the spider Pardosa amentata (Clerck) to the synthetic pyrethroid cypermethrin and monitored prey items consumed in small containers (requiring very little movement to capture prey). The current study used larger arenas containing artificial &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;vegetation&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; (a plastic analogue) to encourage spiders to hunt and capture prey. The period 24 h after exposure produced greatest variability in prey item consumption between treatments and was used to examine treatment effects. At this time, cypermethrin reduced prey consumption rates but these effects did not persist. Findings did not suggest that the presence of artificial vegetation in arenas modified prey consumption rates, which was consistent for individuals treated with cypermethrin and a control group. This is despite the majority of pesticide-treated individuals exhibiting both ataxia and paralysis of the hind legs (these effects persisting for a maximum of 3 and 6 days respectively). These findings were consistent for both sexes. Spider longevity under starvation conditions was not significantly reduced by cypermethrin exposure but overall females survived longer than males. The findings are discussed in the context of the arenas used and the ecology of this common predator.