All Outputs (65)

Student employability enhancement through fieldwork: purposefully integrated or a beneficial side effect? (2023)
Journal Article
Peasland, E. L., Scott, G. W., Morrell, L. J., & Henri, D. C. (in press). Student employability enhancement through fieldwork: purposefully integrated or a beneficial side effect?. Journal of geography in higher education, https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2023.2267459

Fieldwork provides opportunities for students to develop employability-enhancing transferable skills as well as technical, discipline-specific skills and disciplinary knowledge. However, the extent to which staff purposely plan transferable skills ou... Read More about Student employability enhancement through fieldwork: purposefully integrated or a beneficial side effect?.

Building a competence-based model for the academic development of programme leaders (2023)
Journal Article
Lawrence, J., Morrell, L. J., & Scott, G. W. (2023). Building a competence-based model for the academic development of programme leaders. International Journal for Academic Development, https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2023.2166942

The programme leader is crucial to the success of a higher education provider’s educational portfolio. However, programme leader development is under-researched and is too often conceptualised in a negative way, as the solution to a problem. Here we... Read More about Building a competence-based model for the academic development of programme leaders.

Why do some students opt out of fieldwork? Using expectancy-value theory to explore the hidden voices of non-participants (2021)
Journal Article
Peasland, E. L., Henri, D. C., Morrell, L. J., & Scott, G. W. (in press). Why do some students opt out of fieldwork? Using expectancy-value theory to explore the hidden voices of non-participants. International journal of science education, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2021.1923080

Fieldwork is an important part of higher education programmes in geography, geology, environmental sciences and biosciences because it offers opportunities to enhance graduate employability alongside pedagogical and social benefits. However, not all... Read More about Why do some students opt out of fieldwork? Using expectancy-value theory to explore the hidden voices of non-participants.

Sex differences in laterality are associated with reproduction in threespine stickleback (2021)
Journal Article
McLean, S., & Morrell, L. J. (2021). Sex differences in laterality are associated with reproduction in threespine stickleback. The American naturalist, 197(6), 708-718. https://doi.org/10.1086/714138

Laterality, the partitioning of information processing into specific brain hemispheres, is widespread across animal taxa. Substantial unexplained variation in this trait exists, particularly between the sexes, despite multiple identified advantages o... Read More about Sex differences in laterality are associated with reproduction in threespine stickleback.

Consistency in the strength of laterality in male, but not female, guppies across different behavioural contexts (2020)
Journal Article
McLean, S., & Morrell, L. J. (2020). Consistency in the strength of laterality in male, but not female, guppies across different behavioural contexts. Biology Letters, 16(5), Article 20190870. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0870

© 2020 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. Laterality, the division of brain functions into separate hemispheres, is widespread across animal taxa. Lateralized individuals exhibit cognitive advantages yet substantial va... Read More about Consistency in the strength of laterality in male, but not female, guppies across different behavioural contexts.

The influence of fieldwork design on student perceptions of skills development during field courses (2019)
Journal Article
Peasland, E. L., Henri, D. C., Morrell, L. J., & Scott, G. W. (2019). The influence of fieldwork design on student perceptions of skills development during field courses. International journal of science education, 41(17), 2369-2388. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2019.1679906

Employability is a key issue for students and Higher Education Institutions and a key component of employability is possessing the skills a role requires. In the environmental sciences, fieldwork provides an opportunity for students to develop employ... Read More about The influence of fieldwork design on student perceptions of skills development during field courses.

Computerized stimuli for studying oddity effects (2019)
Journal Article
Dobbinson, K. E., Morrell, L. J., & Skarratt, P. A. (2020). Computerized stimuli for studying oddity effects. Behavioral ecology, 31(1), 176-183. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arz174

Visually hunting predators must overcome the challenges that prey groups present. One such challenge is the confusion effect where an overburdened visual system means predators are unable to successfully target prey. A strategy to overcome confusion... Read More about Computerized stimuli for studying oddity effects.

Iterated assessment and feedback improves student outcomes (2019)
Journal Article
Morrell, L. J. (2021). Iterated assessment and feedback improves student outcomes. Studies in higher education, 46(3), 485-496. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1643301

Feedback is critically important to student learning, but the reduced frequency of assignments combined with isolated or stand-alone tasks reduces the opportunity for students to engage with feedback and use it effectively to enhance their learning.... Read More about Iterated assessment and feedback improves student outcomes.

Foraging guppies can compensate for low-light conditions, but not via a sensory switch (2019)
Journal Article
Morrell, L. J., Kimbell, H., Chapman, B., & Dobbinson, K. (2019). Foraging guppies can compensate for low-light conditions, but not via a sensory switch. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 73(3), Article 32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-019-2640-9

Animals can adapt to changes in their environment through behavioural or developmental plasticity, but studies of these responses tend to focus on either short-term exposure of adults to the changed conditions, or long-term exposure of juveniles. Juv... Read More about Foraging guppies can compensate for low-light conditions, but not via a sensory switch.

Group size and individual 'personality' influence emergence times in hermit crabs (2018)
Journal Article
Broadhurst, H. E., & Morrell, L. J. (2018). Group size and individual 'personality' influence emergence times in hermit crabs. Bioscience Horizons, 11, Article hzy011. https://doi.org/10.1093/biohorizons/hzy011

Many animals benefit from aggregating due to the anti-predator effects associated with living in groups. Hermit crabs are known to form groups, or ‘clusters’, which may occur at sites of high shell availability. Clustering may also have anti-predator... Read More about Group size and individual 'personality' influence emergence times in hermit crabs.

Local interactions and global properties of wild, free-ranging stickleback shoals (2017)
Journal Article
Ward, A. J. W., Schaerf, T. M., Herbert-Read, J. E., Morrell, L., Sumpter, D. J. T., & Webster, M. M. (2017). Local interactions and global properties of wild, free-ranging stickleback shoals. Royal Society Open Science, 4(7), 170043. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170043

Collective motion describes the global properties of moving groups of animals and the self-organized, coordinated patterns of individual behaviour that produce them. We examined the group-level patterns and local interactions between individuals in w... Read More about Local interactions and global properties of wild, free-ranging stickleback shoals.

Student perceptions of their autonomy at University (2017)
Journal Article
Henri, D. C., Morrell, L. J., & Scott, G. W. (2018). Student perceptions of their autonomy at University. Higher Education, 75(3), 507-516. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0152-y

© 2017, The Author(s). Learner autonomy is a primary learning outcome of Higher Education in many countries. However, empirical evaluation of how student autonomy progresses during undergraduate degrees is limited. We surveyed a total of 636 students... Read More about Student perceptions of their autonomy at University.

Disturbed flow in an aquatic environment may create a sensory refuge for aggregated prey (2017)
Journal Article
Johannesen, A., Dunn, A. M., & Morrell, L. J. (2017). Disturbed flow in an aquatic environment may create a sensory refuge for aggregated prey. PeerJ, 5, Article e3121. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3121

Predators use olfactory cues moved within water and air to locate prey. Because prey aggregations may produce more cue and be easier to detect, predation could limit aggregation size. However, disturbance in the flow may diminish the reliability of o... Read More about Disturbed flow in an aquatic environment may create a sensory refuge for aggregated prey.

Colour preferences of UK garden birds at supplementary seed feeders (2017)
Journal Article
Rothery, L., Scott, G. W., & Morrell, L. J. (2017). Colour preferences of UK garden birds at supplementary seed feeders. PLoS ONE, 12(2), Article e0172422. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172422

Supplementary feeding of garden birds generally has benefits for both bird populations and human wellbeing. Birds have excellent colour vision, and show preferences for food items of particular colours, but research into colour preferences associated... Read More about Colour preferences of UK garden birds at supplementary seed feeders.

Conflict between background matching and social signalling in a colour-changing freshwater fish (2016)
Journal Article
Morrell, L. J., Kelley, J. L., & Rodgers, G. M. (2016). Conflict between background matching and social signalling in a colour-changing freshwater fish. Royal Society Open Science, 3(6), 160040. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160040

The ability to change coloration allows animals to modify their patterning to suit a specific function. Many freshwater fishes, for example, can appear cryptic by altering the dispersion of melanin pigment in the skin to match the visual background.... Read More about Conflict between background matching and social signalling in a colour-changing freshwater fish.

The effect of temporally variable environmental stimuli and group size on emergence behavior (2016)
Journal Article
Hansen, M. J., Morrell, L., & Ward, A. J. (2016). The effect of temporally variable environmental stimuli and group size on emergence behavior. Behavioral ecology, 27(3), 939-945. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arv237

How animals trade-off food availability and predation threats is a strong determinant of animal activity and behavior; however, the majority of work on this topic has been on individual animals, despite the modulating effect the presence of conspecif... Read More about The effect of temporally variable environmental stimuli and group size on emergence behavior.

Turbidity weakens selection for assortment in body size in groups (2015)
Journal Article
Kimbell, H. S., & Morrell, L. J. (2016). Turbidity weakens selection for assortment in body size in groups. Behavioral ecology, 27(2), 545-552. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arv183

Prey animals commonly associate with similar-looking individuals to reduce predation risk, via a reduction in predator targeting accuracy (the confusion effect) and preferential targeting of distinct individuals (the oddity effect). These effects are... Read More about Turbidity weakens selection for assortment in body size in groups.

Handedness in fiddler crab fights (2015)
Journal Article
Perez, D. M., Heatwole, S. J., Morrell, L. J., & Backwell, P. R. Y. (2015). Handedness in fiddler crab fights. Animal behaviour, 110(December), 99-104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2015.09.012

Asymmetric weapons are common in bilateral animals and, in some species, they can occur on either the left- or the right-hand side of the body (lateralization). Fiddler crabs (Uca spp, Decapoda: Ocypodidae) have an enlarged claw that is used in male–... Read More about Handedness in fiddler crab fights.

Ask a clearer question, get a better answer. [version 1; peer review: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations] (2015)
Journal Article
Henri, D., Morrell, L., & Scott, G. (in press). Ask a clearer question, get a better answer. [version 1; peer review: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations]. F1000Research, 4, Article 901. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.7066.1

Many undergraduate students struggle to engage with higher order skills such as evaluation and synthesis in written assignments, either because they do not understand that these are the aim of written assessment or because these critical thinking ski... Read More about Ask a clearer question, get a better answer. [version 1; peer review: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations].

'Selfish herds' of guppies follow complex movement rules, but not when information is limited (2015)
Journal Article
Kimbell, H. S., & Morrell, L. J. (2015). 'Selfish herds' of guppies follow complex movement rules, but not when information is limited. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 282(1816), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.1558

Under the threat of predation, animals can decrease their level of risk by moving towards other individuals to form compact groups. A significant body of theoretical work has proposed multiple movement rules, varying in complexity, which might underl... Read More about 'Selfish herds' of guppies follow complex movement rules, but not when information is limited.