Making a mark in social studies

The name Mark Morgan may not ring a bell for you, but you'll certainly be aware of his work. Over the years he's be involved in a number of important, high-profile studies - on adult literacy, the use of alcohol and other drugs by young people and, most recently, university dropout rates.

The reports of these studies have made for uncomfortable reading. His study of adult literacy, for example, shows that one quarter of Irish adults have problems with all but the simplest literacy tasks. The study on alcohol and other drugs underlines the sad fact that Irish adolescents drink more than their peers in other countries. Meanwhile, research conducted in the universities highlights an overall dropout rate of 17 per cent and even higher rates in certain fields - computing, science and engineering, in particular.

Morgan, the youngest of four, born seven months after his father's death, grew up in east Galway in the pre-free-secondary-education era. "I was," he recalls, "fortunate enough to have a truly exceptional primary teacher, Tom Regan, who was influential not only in giving me an edge in scholarships - which were the only ticket to post-primary school at that time - but also an enthusiasm about teaching that has come to characterise my own teaching style." In the event, secondary school (Summerhill College, Co Sligo, on a scholarship) proved a let-down. Morgan far preferred the rigours of St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin, where he went to train as a teacher. For the Galway youngster, becoming a teacher represented the very pinnacle of achievement. He was only 19 when, armed with a diploma in education, he took up a job in Co Roscommon - as principal in a small rural school. Despite there being a far more experienced female teacher on the staff, Morgan was promoted, he says, because of his gender. "I was still a kid and went from having no responsibility to having total responsibility. Being a peer of the parish priest, who was 50 years older than me, felt very strange."

During his years in St Pat's, Morgan had developed an interest in psychology. To pursue it, he enrolled as an external student of London University and virtually taught himself. "To my absolute astonishment, I got a first-class honours degree and was offered a one year studentship in psychology. I'd never even heard of the studentship, but I knew immediately that my world had changed."

The Morgans (he'd met his wife, Nancy, a nurse, in Roscommon), upped sticks and moved to London where he became of a graduate student of the London School of Economics. After St Pat's and Killina National School, Co Roscommon, the LSE - radical, left wing and international - was a culture shock. He was, he recalls fortunate to have as his professor Hilde Himmelweit, who had produced seminal work on the effects of mass media on children. In 1976, Morgan was offered a lecturing job back in St Pat's. It was all that he wanted. "I've never had any ambition to move since then," he shrugs. He did, though, spend a year on a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University, California. "I worked on substance abuse. That's how I got involved and I've been at it ever since." These days, Morgan divides his time between his job as director of postgraduate studies in education at St Pat's and as a researcher at the Educational Research Centre there. He works closely with the centre's director, Dr Tom Kellaghan. In Ireland, Morgan's research career took off when he embarked on an ESRI study of alcohol abuse in the mid1980s. He has continued to track the changes that have occurred in drinking and drug use over the years. His work culminated in the 1999 ESPAD report on alcohol and other drug use among students in 30 European countries. For Morgan, the increase in drinking among young people highlights the changing nature of childhood. "Traditionally, childhood in Ireland was longer than in other countries. The Pioneers have virtually disappeared and the age at which young people are drinking has gone down. Even though young people are now involved for a longer period in education, they want to be independent in their private lives. It is the most common reason they give for working. Some 20 per cent of Leaving Cert students are now spending more time working than in school." The onset of puberty, taking up part-time work, drinking and becoming sexually active is happening, on average, one year earlier than 15 years ago, Morgan says. This, he notes, marks a major change in the relationship between adults and children and has significant implications. "They are growing up more quickly and we can't do anything about it. We can't tell them not to do things. We have to learn a new relationship with young people - more like a partnership. We have to acknowledge that they are more able to make up their minds about what they want and that preaching to them is inappropriate," he argues.

Morgan's most recent highprofile involvement is the HEA-commissioned Study of Non-Completion in Undergraduate University Courses. "The big news," he says, "was that certain fields of study - especially those with a maths content - have more problems than others. One in three computer science students drops out. "I was surprised to find that the figures were so consistent across all the universities. While the overall figure is good by international standards, it should be better. Anyone who gets to college in Ireland is intelligent and hardworking. Unlike countries where they have open admission policies, here, you have to do well to get in." Morgan has already embarked on a follow-up study examining the reasons for dropout. He will, he promises, be examining all the factors, including resources, teaching quality and the problem of transition. "It's becoming clear that people know about the course content of their first choices, but know very little about the courses they actually get - which may be their seventh or eighth choice. "Exam failure is a major cause of dropout. It raises the question of the suitability of exams and highlights the need for some ongoing assessment and feedback before students sit their first exams."