Impaired motor control after sport-related concussion could increase risk for musculoskeletal injury: Implications for clinical management and rehabilitation

This review presents a conceptual framework and supporting evidence that links impaired motor control after sport-related concussion(SRC)to increased risk for musculoskeletal injury.Multiple studies have found that athletes who are post-SRC have higher risk for musculoskeletal injury compared to their counterparts.A small body of research suggests that impairments in motor control are associated with musculoskeletal injury risk.Motor control involves the perception and processing of sensory information and subsequent coordination of motor output within the central nervous system to perform a motor task.Motor control is inclusive of motor planning and motor learning.If sensory information is not accurately perceived or there is interference with sensory information processing and cognition,motor function will be altered,and an athlete may become vulnerable to injury during sport participation.Athletes with SRC show neuroanatomic and neurophysiological changes relevant to motor control even after meeting return to sport criteria,including a normal neurological examination,resolution of symptoms,and return to baseline function on traditional concussion testing.In conjunction,altered motor function is demonstrated after SRC in muscle activation and force production,movement patterns,balance/postural stability,and motor task performance,especially performance of a motor task paired with a cognitive task(i.e.,dual-task condition).The clinical implications of this conceptual framework include a need to intentionally address motor control impairments after SRC to mitigate musculoskeletal injury risk and to monitor motor control as the athlete progresses through the return to sport continuum.     

Exploring factors that influence adoption of e‐learning within higher education

E‐learning is increasingly adopted in the workplace for supporting professional development and continuing education; however, in higher education, the use of e‐learning is predominantly used as a tool support teaching. As a relatively new priority for universities, this paper explores what influences its adoption. Challenges identified in the literature include organisational features of universities like faculty autonomy and dispersed academic perspectives. This study, carried out at the University of Warwick, adopted a phenomenological approach and explored participants' perceptions through a series of faculty‐based focus groups and individual interviews. Factors identified as influential to adoption of e‐learning included the institutional infrastructure, staff attitudes and skills, and perceived student expectations. Participants suggested the importance of an institutional strategy targeted at providing sufficient resources and guidance for effective implementation. This strategy needs to be supported by a varied programme of staff development and opportunities for sharing practice among colleagues. In further developing understanding in this area, it would be beneficial to replicate the study with other stakeholder groups (including the leadership team and students) to develop an institutional strategy responsive at all levels of implementation. It would also be valuable to investigate the extent to which these findings are replicated within other workplaces looking to adopt innovation.     

When worlds collide: identity,culture and the lived experiences of research when ‘teaching-led’

This article presents detailed findings from the qualitative or interpretive phase of a mixed-methods case study focusing on the professional identities and lived experiences of research among six lecturers working in different capacities across the field of education in a ‘teaching-led’ higher education institution. Building upon the quantitative phase published earlier in this journal, factors both facilitating (e.g. research infrastructure, support for doctoral study) and constraining (e.g. time, space, workload, critical mass, ‘practitioner bond professionalism’, ‘organisational socialisation’, networks, roles and responsibilities, power relationships) research activity are identified. These are considered in the context of an institution often recruiting staff with ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds from within ‘the professions’ (e.g. from schools and colleges without doctorates) looking to become more ‘research-informed’ and establish a more vibrant and sustainable research culture. Recommendations for further development focus on ‘identity transitions’ and ‘cultural transformation’, emphasising the importance of research leadership and its distribution throughout the organisation. With current trends towards the apparent intensification and prioritisation of research activity over teaching, findings are considered particularly important for institutions of a similar nature to the one described here, for education departments in larger institutions also on similar journeys, and in light of an anticipated increase in demand for research activity arising from the expansion of higher education provision in further education and the private sector, where recruitment from within ‘the professions’ to teach across ‘vocational’ programmes is common.     

Improved Appreciation of Mathematics Through an IBL Liberal Arts Mathematics Course

Abstract

The author has taught an inquiry-based liberal arts mathematics class using the text “The Heart of Mathematics: An Invitation to Effective Thinking” by Edward B. Burger and Michael Starbird a total of 20 times since Spring 2001. The students in this class have almost all been in non-technical majors and many started the semester with negative or ambivalent attitudes toward mathematics based on their prior experiences. The author has gathered responses from students in this class that illustrate significant changes in their attitudes towards mathematics during the course. In particular, the responses gathered at the end of the semester are often eloquent about understanding the great ideas of mathematics that students confronted in this course and about seeing many more and varied connections between mathematics and the “real world” than they had previously realized existed.     

Students’ Perspectives on LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum

Implementing curriculum that is inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) people has the potential to create an equitable learning environment. In order to learn more about students’ experiences of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, 26 high school students with diverse racial/ethnic, sexual, and gender identities were recruited from the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) Network in California. Students participated in focus groups conducted by telephone by GSA staff, sharing their experiences of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum in school. Qualitative coding methods, including grounded theory, were used to identify themes and interpret students’ responses. Data revealed that LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum was most often taught in social sciences and humanities courses as stand-alone lessons. LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum rarely met standards of social justice education, though opportunities for critical conversations about systemic oppression regularly emerged. For instance, teachers often failed to intervene in LGBTQ bullying and missed teachable moments conducive to inclusive curriculum. Some students learned positive LGBTQ lessons and highlighted the ways such curriculum reflected their identities and created a supportive school climate. Implications for equitable education are discussed.     

Re-Entering the Sporting World: China's Sponsorship of the 1963 Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO)

Prior to the 2008 Olympics, China's most sustained support of an international multi-sport event came in 1963 when it contributed significantly to the financing of and then dominated the medals table at the inaugural Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO), held in Jakarta. GANEFO is a singular moment through which to understand politics and sport in the 1960s. This article is a consideration of China's role in GANEFO, and the West's response to China's involvement. It explores the ways in which China used the event to navigate issues of international and regional geopolitics, and considers the diplomatic and sporting corridors within which GANEFO resonated. GANEFO was a platform through which geopolitical tensions were revealed, and China engaged in propaganda campaigns directed at the West and positioned itself to win allies among the decolonising countries of Asia and Africa – astride the artificial boundary that separated the Second and Third Worlds. China's interest in and the West's response to GANEFO reflected the ways in which anti-communist Cold War politics were conflated with racialised, post-colonial discourses and tension between Second World powers.     

But I like PE: factors associated with enjoyment of physical education class in middle school girls

The current study examined associations between physical education (PE) class enjoyment and sociodemographic, personal, and perceived school environment factors among early adolescent girls. Participants included 1,511 sixth-grade girls who completed baseline assessments for the Trial of Activity in Adolescent Girls, with 50% indicating they enjoyed PE class a lot. Variables positively associated with PE class enjoyment included physical activity level, perceived benefits of physical activity, self-efficacy for leisure time physical activity, and perceived school climate for girls' physical activity as influenced by teachers, while body mass index was inversely associated with PE class enjoyment. After adjusting for all variables in the model, PE class enjoyment was significantly greater in Blacks than in Whites. In model testing, with mutual adjustment for all variables, self-efficacy was the strongest correlate of PE class enjoyment, followed by perceived benefits, race/ethnicity, and teachers' support for girls' physical activity, as compared to boys, at school. The overall model explained 11% of the variance in PE class enjoyment. Findings suggest that efforts to enhance girls' self-efficacy and perceived benefits and to provide a supportive PE class environment that promotes gender equality can potentially increase PE class enjoyment among young girls.