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Recently identified university students navigate dyslexia
Get PDFPurpose -
The purpose of this paper is to capture students’ understandings of dyslexia as a component of identity. Specifically, the journey that students embarked on in order to contribute to self-understanding of learning and how dyslexia contributes to these experiences was examined.
Design/methodology/approach -
This qualitative case study explored concepts of social identity theory, how students understood their dyslexia and whether or not labelling theory informed students’ identities through an arts-based phenomenological lens. Eight university students participated in a brief survey, a semi-structured interview and created artefacts representing their dyslexia, which facilitated dialogue about their individual experiences in a higher education context.
Findings -
Interpretive phenomenological analysis revealed that student participants associated strongly with the identity of dyslexia; however they did not consider themselves to be part of a dyslexic group. They also discussed different routes that informed their decisions to undergo diagnostic assessments for dyslexia. Students did not report dyslexia identity as a label. Nonetheless, the students expressed that creating an artefact supported them to better understand and communicate their dyslexia.
Originality/value -
Although visual methods are increasingly prevalent in educational research, they are not typical in the field of dyslexia in higher education. This research therefore engaged students in active self-reflection which provided valuable insight into the nature and diversity of the experiences that can emerge from identification of dyslexia at university
Temporary liberties and uncertain futures: young female Muslim perceptions of life in England
Get PDFThis article explores how young female Muslim university students in London and Birmingham experience life in England. Through focus groups and interviews, talk about three main topics was collected: how young Muslims frame their identities; how they are perceived by others; and how they perceive Muslims to be portrayed and represented in public life. Analysis shows that the participants: presented themselves as ambitious and autonomous; experienced direct and indirect exclusion as young Muslims; perceived a lack of diverse Muslims role models and ambassadors in public life; and that, despite their optimism, felt their futures in Britain were uncertain. The young people recognised the temporary liberties they have around dress and practice as university students that are potentially restricted in wider society. The research highlights the problems created by stigmatising public discourse around Islamist extremism that fuels narrow, deficit-focused policy that exacerbates the exclusion of young Muslims
‘We have to wait in a queue for our turn quite a bit’: examining children’s physical activity during primary physical education lessons
Get PDFThe overall purpose of this study was to examine children’s physical activity (PA) during primary physical education (PE). This was achieved through the following two research objectives: 1) to measure children’s PA, lesson context and teacher promotion of PA during PE lessons; and 2) to explore teachers’ and children’s perspectives on PA levels during PE lessons. Evidence suggests that children’s PA during PE is below recommended levels and further research is required to understand the reasons why. Through a mixed method design, 138 children were observed using the System for Observing Fitness and Instruction Time (SOFIT), 80 children participated in group interviews, and 13 teachers were interviewed, across three primary schools in England.
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Findings indicated that the mean percentage of lesson time allocated to moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) was 42.4% and the average lesson length was 35.3 minutes. Qualitative themes identified were: ‘knowledge and beliefs’, ‘teacher pedagogy’, and ‘teacher development’. The findings indicate that a change in perspective is needed, which includes a focus on PA during primary PE lessons. Intervention work is required that targets teachers’ knowledge and beliefs towards PE along with the development of effective teaching strategies. However, this needs to be grounded in an ecological approach which will allow the researchers and schools to target the various levels of influence. It is strongly recommended that interventions are grounded in behaviour change theory, as this study indicates that sharing knowledge of pedagogical strategies to increase children’s MVPA does not necessarily produce changes in teachers’ behaviours
Pressure garment to prevent abnormal scarring after burn injury in adults and children: the PEGASUS feasibility RCT and mixed-methods study
Get PDFBackground: Eleven million people suffer a fire-related injury worldwide every year, and 71% have significant scarring. Pressure garment therapy (PGT) is a standard part of burn scar management, but there is little evidence of its clinical effectiveness or cost-effectiveness.
Objective: To identify the barriers to, and the facilitators of, conducting a randomised controlled trial (RCT) of burn scar management with and without PGT and test whether or not such a trial is feasible.
Design: Web-based surveys, semistructured individual interviews, a pilot RCT including a health economic evaluation and embedded process evaluation.
Setting: UK NHS burns services. Interviews and the pilot trial were run in seven burns services.
Participants: Thirty NHS burns services and 245 staff provided survey responses and 15 staff participated in individual interviews. Face-to-face interviews were held with 24 adult patients and 16 parents of paediatric patients who had undergone PGT. The pilot trial recruited 88 participants (57 adults and 31 children) who were at risk of hypertrophic scarring and were considered suitable for scar management therapy. Interviews were held with 34 participants soon after recruitment, with 23 participants at 12 months and with eight staff from six sites at the end of the trial.
Interventions: The intervention was standard care with pressure garments. The control was standard care comprising scar management techniques involving demonstration and recommendations to undertake massage three or four times per day with moisturiser, silicone treatment, stretching and other exercises.
Main outcome measures: Feasibility was assessed by eligibility rates, consent rates, retention in allocated arms, adherence with treatment and follow-up and completion of outcome assessments. The outcomes from interview-based studies were core outcome domains and barriers to, and facilitators of, trial participation and delivery.
© Queen’s Printer and Controller of HMSO 2018. This work was produced by Moiemen et al. under the terms of a commissioning contract issued by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. This issue may be freely reproduced for the purposes of private research and study and extracts (or indeed, the full report) may be included in professional journals provided that suitable acknowledgement is made and the reproduction is not associated with any form of advertising. Applications for commercial reproduction should
ABSTRACT
Results: NHS burns services treat 2845 patients per annum (1476 paediatric and 1369 adult) and use pressure garments for 6–18 months, costing £2,171,184. The majority of staff perceived a need for a RCT of PGT, but often lacked equipoise around the research question and PGT as a treatment. Strong views about the use of PGT have the potential to influence the conduct of a full-scale RCT. A range of outcome domains was identified as important via the qualitative research: perceptions of appearance, specific scar characteristics, function, pain and itch, broader psychosocial outcomes and treatment burden. The outcome tools evaluated in the pilot trial did not cover all of these domains. The planned 88 participants were recruited: the eligibility rate was 88% [95% confidence interval (CI) 83% to 92%], the consent rate was 47% (95% CI 40% to 55%). Five (6%) participants withdrew, 14 (16%) were lost to follow-up and 8 (9%) crossed over. Adherence was as in clinical practice. Completion of outcomes was high for adult patients but poorer from parents of paediatric patients, particularly for quality of life. Sections on range of movement and willingness to pay were found to be challenging and poorly completed.
Limitations: The Brisbane Burn Scar Impact Profile appears more suitable in terms of conceptual coverage than the outcome scales that were used in the trial but was not available at the time of the study.
Conclusions: A definitive RCT of PGT in burn scar management appears feasible. However, staff attitudes to the use of pressure garments may lead to biases, and the provision of training and support to sites and an ongoing assessment of trial processes are required.
Future work: We recommend that any future trial include an in-depth mixed-methods recruitment investigation and a process evaluation to account for this.
Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN34483199.
Funding: This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 22, No. 36. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project informatio
The role of self-management in burns aftercare: a qualitative research study
Get PDFIntroduction
For severe burns patient care presents a considerable challenge, necessitating an integrated multi-disciplinary approach that utilises a range of treatments. The period of care post-discharge can be lengthy and complex, and include scar management, occupational and physiotherapies, psychological support, and further surgery. How successfully the patient negotiates this complex care regimen is critical to their long-term recovery and in doing so they would appear to employ approaches recognised as “self-management” in other chronic conditions. However their exact nature and how they are used has yet to be explicitly explored amongst chronic burn patients.
Methods
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 patients to discuss their experiences of long-term burn treatment as part of a broader mixed-methods feasibility study of the use of pressure garment therapy in preventing hypertrophic scarring after burn injury. The topic guide included questions on the patient experience of their care post discharge, including pressure garment therapy and other scar management techniques; and their expectations and experiences of treatment and recovery. The data were analysed using an established framework of self-management processes.
Results
Burns patients employ many of the same processes of self-management as those experiencing more widely recognised chronic diseases or illnesses. This is despite the prospect of gradual improvement amongst burns patients absent in those with incurable chronic conditions. The key processes of self-management they share are the ability to focus on their illness needs, activate the appropriate resources and coming to terms with the consequences of living with either the physical or psychological consequences of their condition.
Conclusion
Modern burn care is technologically advanced and delivered by a highly trained, multi-disciplinary team, yet the level of its success relies on the ability of the patient to independently fulfil a number of health-related tasks and activities once leaving hospital. Considering the potential cost-savings to health services and the prospect of improved outcomes for patients capable of self-management our work is an important first step in more precisely understanding the use of self-management amongst burns patients, and the level of implicit or explicit support currently offered by their care providers
'When Noah built the ark...': metaphor and Biblical stories in Facebook preaching
Get PDFThis article investigates the use of Biblical stories and text in the preaching of Joshua Feuerstein, a popular Facebook evangelist, and focuses on how Biblical stories are used to position the viewer in comparison to Biblical characters and texts. Taking a discourse dynamics approach (Cameron & Maslen, 2010), a corpus of 8 short videos (17 minutes 34 seconds) and their comments (2,295) taken from the Facebook are analysed first, for the presence of metaphorical language and stories taken from the Bible. Second, they are analysed for the role of metaphor in the narrative positioning (Bamberg, 1997) of the viewer, particularly as it relates to Gibbs’s notion of allegorises, or the ‘allegoric impulse’ (Gibbs, 2011). The corresponding text comments from the videos are then also analysed for the presence of the same Biblical metaphor, focusing on how commenters interact with the metaphor and Feuerstein’s positioning of them. Findings show that Biblical metaphorical language is used to position viewers and their struggles in the context of larger storylines that compare everyday experiences to Biblical texts. This comparison can happen both in explicit narrative positioning of viewers with explicit reference to the Bible, and implicit positioning, through the use of unmarked Biblical language. Analysis of viewer comments shows that use of metaphorical language is successful in building a sense of camaraderie and shared belief among the viewer and Feuerstein, as well as viewers with one another
Sheltering under the Covenant: The National Covenant, Orthodoxy and the Irish Rebellion, 1638-1642
Get PDFThe Irish Rebellion of October 1641 drove large numbers of clerical migrants across the Irish Sea to Scotland. These ministers brought news of Protestantism’s plight in Ireland, petitions for charitable aid and, in many cases, requests to work as preachers in Scotland. Historians have long recognised the social and religious links between Ireland and Scotland in the mid-seventeenth century and have seen these men as part of a wider effort to establish Presbyterianism across Britain and Ireland. Such an argument fails to understand the complexity of mid-seventeenth-century Presbyterianism. This paper explores these petitions for work and the less-than-enthusiastic response of ecclesiastical authorities in Scotland. Rather than automatically embracing Irish ministers as fellow Presbyterians, the Covenanted Kirk leadership was aware that the infant Presbyterian congregations in Ireland had followed a very different course to their own. Rather than fellow sufferers for Christ’s cause, or part of a wider Covenanted network, Kirk leaders needed to assess Irish ministers for their godly credentials
Knowledge as explanandum: disentangling lay and professional perspectives on science and religion
Get PDFIssues pertaining to the relationship between science and religion, like creationism, Intelligent Design, and New Atheism, are increasingly the focus of social scientific research. This research often does not differentiate clearly between different kinds of social actors. At the most basic level, professional developers and distributors of systems of thought that deal with the relationship between science and religion and laypeople who take up this knowledge, or parts of it, must be distinguished. Based upon interview material from the large, multinational study Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum, we identify five typical dimensions of lay knowledge vis-á-vis professional knowledge: reinterpretation of professional labels; neglect of important parts of knowledge systems; addition of knowledge; lower ascription of relevance; and an individual ethical framing
Getting Out of the Laboratory to Make Experiments Real: Can Sports Fans Influence Muay Thai Judges?
Get PDFTo find out if one thing actually causes another, carefully controlled experiments are needed. Experiments usually take place in a laboratory. However, to examine how people respond to things that happen in real life, in particular places at particular times, it can also be important to step outside the laboratory. This article discusses how to have enough control in an experiment to be confident that something caused something else to happen, yet to also be confident the same effect would happen with other people, at other times, and in other places. This article will explain why it can be important to conduct experiments in real-life settings and will illustrate this using an experiment that a colleague and I conducted on the effect of crowd noise on the judges during a sport called Muay Thai. However, it will begin by exploring how experiments are used to find cause and effect