Craig Hospital

ABSTRACT Study Skills in any guise are integral to Higher Education worldwide, existing to help student success. Some argue generic or bolt-on Study Skills do not help with success, others that embedded Study Skills do, but no-one advocates actually evaluating Study Skills in a context of success defined as helping with student educational gain and attainment in their specific subjects. Instead, many evaluate them in arguably inappropriate contexts of a silo or bubble of Study Skills such as attendance or perceived improvements in Study Skills. Indeed, when Study Skills are found effective for success, they are often embedded or delivered in the subject context, but it is not suggested they actually be evaluated in that context. We outline what we consider to be inappropriate contexts for evaluation, and appropriate ones, and outline theory from thinkers such as Mikhail Bakhtin regarding the key role of context and discuss key issues of definitions, silos, and decontextualised metrics. We suggest Study Skills be evaluated by asking: ‘What’s the context? to make them effective in helping aim for student success. We suggest ways to do this, such as through student module evaluations, module reports, or objective student analysis by a third party.

The aim of this study was to determine whether circulating concentrations of activation- and apoptosis-derived endothelial cell-derived microvesicles (EMVs) differ between adults after subacute (time since injury ≤6 months) and chronic (time since injury >12 months) spinal cord injury (SCI). Peripheral blood was collected from 43 adults (age range 18-71 years): 12 non-injured adults (9 male/3 female), 16 adults with subacute cervical and high thoracic (C2-T3) motor complete injuries (13 male/3 female; time since injury 1-3 months), and 15 adults with chronic cervical and high thoracic (C1-T2) motor complete injuries (14 male/1 female; time since injury 12-52 months). EMVs were defined by markers of endothelial origin either by activation (CD62e+) or apoptosis (CD31+/CD42b-) by flow cytometry. Activation-derived but not apoptosis-derived EMVs were significantly higher (P < .05) in adults with chronic SCI (median [IQR], 139 [83-181] EMVs/μL) compared with adults with subacute SCI (median [IQR], 99 [83-104] EMVs/μL) and non-injured adults (median [IQR], 74 [51-104] EMVs/μL). In contrast, apoptosis-derived but not activation-derived EMVs were significantly higher (P < .05) in adults with subacute SCI (mean ± SD, 77 ± 17 EMVs/μL) compared with adults with chronic SCI (mean ± SD, 55 ± 19 EMVs/μL) and non-injured adults (mean ± SD, 52 ± 25 EMVs/μL). Differential expression of circulating EMVs in adults with SCI during the subacute and chronic phase of injury may represent a biomarker of the vascular environment associated with each condition. Our findings suggest that the vascular phenotype is markedly different in subacute compared with the chronic SCI and provide insight into endothelial function after SCI.

Individuals' appraisals regarding the injustice of their pain or physical injury have emerged as a significant risk factor for worse physical and psychological outcomes. Injustice appraisals are defined by perceptions of external blame for pain or injury and viewing pain or injury as a source of irreparable loss. To date, research on the impact of injustice appraisal has been primarily cross sectional, and existing longitudinal studies have examined injustice appraisals at only 2 time points in the context of rehabilitation treatment. This study examined the trajectory of injustice appraisals in 171 patients admitted for traumatic injury at admission, as well as 3, 6, and 12 months after discharge and examined injustice appraisals as a potential moderator of recovery after injury. Findings can be summarized as follows: First, injustice perception was largely stable in the 12 months after hospital discharge. Second, elevated injustice perception was associated with decreased recovery in pain intensity and depressive symptomatology over the study period but did not moderate changes in pain catastrophizing or posttraumatic stress symptomatology over time. This study is the first naturalistic prospective analysis of injustice appraisal following trauma admission within the American healthcare system. Findings indicate that injustice appraisals do not naturally decrease in the aftermath of traumatic injury and may be a risk factor for poorer physical and psychological recovery. Future research should examine additional sociodemographic and psychosocial factors that may contribute to elevated injustice appraisal, as well as ways of addressing the potential deleterious impact of injustice appraisals in treatment settings.