Student motivation as an organised system of relations between the self and learning involves a set of beliefs and intentions that function as motives for action. The present research programme proposes that students in formal leaming settings come equipped with particular views of what school learning is all about, the purpose of their learning, and of themselves as learners. Findings from a longitudinal study investigating student motivation as expressed in curiosity and approaches to school learning are described. The ways adolescents connect themselves (or fail to connect themselves) with their learning are examined in two cohorts of female students assessed in Years 7, 9, and 11.

In 1998, 12 elementary school students aged 11–12 years, who were living in a disadvantaged suburb in a New Zealand city, were comprehensively assessed and determinations were made regarding their risk statuses. Ten years later, nine of the participants were located and interviewed and the data were examined using interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith & Osborn, 2008). Three resilience themes were discerned at Time 2: relationships, contexts of development, and personhood and identity. The combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies at the two assessment points promoted the derivation of a resilience model that connects relational contexts to executive functioning and purposeful action. The investigation also prompted observations about the contribution of qualitative research to the study of resilience.

All theories of adolescent development give sexuality a central place in negotiating the transition from child to adult. The sexual urges that emerge at puberty must be blended with other aspects of teenagers' lives and channelled adaptively. It is especially important that the adolescent be able to integrate his or her sexual feelings, needs, and desires into a coherent and positive self-identity, which contains, as one aspect, a sexual self. This sexual self is influenced in complex ways by cultural expectations and the sexual discourse characteristic of any social context. This study is a report of interviews with 153 adolescents aged 15 to 18 from three very different backgrounds: homeless youth, and Anglo-Australian and Greek-Australian young people living at home in a large Australian city. A number of themes about the ways young people describe their sexual worlds emerged from analysis of the interviews. The themes concerned permissiveness, romance, beliefs about both the “double standard” and the control of sexual urges, sexual aggression, and sexual “regrets.” The importance of these themes in influencing sexual self-definition and sexual behaviour is presented. The extent to which young people undergo conflict and questioning in integrating their ideas about sexuality and their actual sexual behaviours is considered.

The Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Children (HiPIC) is a developmentally appropriate parent-report measure of the Five Factor Model (FFM) that has been validated in several European languages but only recently in English. The English translation of the HiPIC was evaluated in an Australian context. Parent-rated HiPIC scores were obtained for 202 children (aged 5–14 years) via an online survey. Exploratory factor analysis indicated five factors that appeared reasonably congruent with the original Flemish HiPIC structure, though with some apparent differences particularly in regard to the Extraversion and Benevolence facets. A Procrustes targeted rotation was used to evaluate the congruence with the original Flemish structure. This indicated encouragingly high congruences for the overall model (.97), as well as high facet and factor congruence (.92–.99). These findings can be taken to reflect the robust nature of the HiPIC model, validating the instrument and more specifically confirming its applicability for use in practice and research investigating children's development and wellbeing in Australia.

Ever since mass education became the norm, with children being required to attend group-teaching in literacy and numeracy, some children have experienced difficulty in coping with this type of instruction. Their reaction frequently manifests as a bored, unruly child who exertsa disruptiveclassroom influence. The issue of what to do with such children has been a persistent problem for their teachers.

Coping skills provide a resource for tackling stress in everyday situations, including those relating to parenting. The aim of this article is to establish whether parents who experienced a 10-hour universal social emotional parenting program — Families Coping (FC) — benefit through increased productive coping strategies, decreased nonproductive coping strategies, and increased parent wellbeing, within a positive parenting framework. It is also of interest to see whether gender and/or partner attendance makes a difference in program outcomes such as coping styles and wellbeing. The data set combined two groups of parents (N = 23) of preschool-aged children from an early learning centre in inner-metropolitan Melbourne in 2013 and 2014 who undertook the FC parenting program. A mixed methods design was employed, where parents completed pre- and post-program questionnaires on coping and wellbeing. Results were considered with respect to gender and partner attendance. A one-way repeated-measures multiple analysis of variance (RM-MANOVA) showed a significant increase in one productive parenting style (Dealing with the Problem), a significant decrease in nonproductive parent coping, and a significant increase in parent wellbeing. Comparison of results between gender and partner attendance groups showed minimal differences in program effectiveness. Qualitative data mostly confirmed the key findings.

This is a reflective paper grounded in practice. It addresses the nature of working alliances in education between colleagues from different cultural, professional and generational backgrounds. The authors are specifically concerned with discussing the significance of accessing peer/cultural support in education, in particular how one colleague mentored another and the way knowledge was exchanged during this process to increase awareness and understanding. This topic is considered in the context of supporting male Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students while they study and live away from home to complete their secondary school education at boarding school in Western Australia (WA).

Adolescence is a period of heightened risk-taking. Therefore it is important to investigate positive settings that can facilitate healthy adolescent development and reduce risk-taking behaviour. This study investigated the relations between non-sporting extracurricular activity participation intensity and risky behaviour. Adolescents’ coping efficacy was tested as a moderator between extracurricular activity participation and risk-taking among adolescents at different levels of contextual risk. Adolescents (N = 1,599) across Western Australia were surveyed. Results for moderately at-risk youth indicated a significant interaction, such that greater activity intensity was associated with less risk-taking for adolescents with higher coping efficacy. However, higher intensity activity participation predicted more risk-taking for adolescents with low coping efficacy.

Learning from complex instructional materials typically requires sustained attention, but many learners — both children and adults — may find their minds ‘wandering’ when learning. Drama educators have argued that ‘mirroring’ exercises, where students in pairs or groups mirror each other's movements, improve attention; but, to date, evidence for this claim is anecdotal. This exploratory study investigated the effects of a prelearning mirroring intervention on mathematical performance from the perspective of cognitive load theory. Twenty-six university students engaged in a mindful and embodied mirroring activity before learning a rapid mental mathematics strategy. Effects on learning were evaluated using two mathematical problem-solving tests completed after learning the maths strategy. Compared to the non-mirroring condition, students in the mirroring condition solved subsequent test problems more quickly than those in the control condition. Initial evidence thus suggests a mirroring intervention may enhance the quality of learning during mathematics.

Objective: Limited time and resources necessitate the availability of accurate, inexpensive and rapid diagnostic aids for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The Autistic Behavioural Indicators Instrument (ABII) was developed for this purpose, but its psychometric properties have not yet been fully established. Method: The clinician-rated ABII, the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), the Childhood Autism Rating Scale – Second Edition, Standard Version (CARS2-ST), and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) diagnostic criteria were individually administered to children with an independent paediatrician DSM-IV-TR or DSM-5 autism spectrum diagnosis, aged 2-6 years (n = 51, Mchildage = 3.6 years). The agreement between each of the measures on autism diagnostic classification was calculated and compared, and the intercorrelation between the instruments examined. Results: There was significant moderate agreement for the classification of autism between the ABII and the DSM-5, and significant fair agreement between the ABII and ADOS and ABII and CARS2-ST. True positive diagnostic classifications were similar across the ABII (n = 47, 92.2%) and ADOS (n = 45, 88.2%), and significantly higher than the CARS2-ST (n = 30, 58.8%). The ABII total scale score was strongly positively correlated with both the ADOS and CARS2-ST total scores. Conclusion: The ABII's test characteristics were comparable to those of established measures, and the intercorrelations between selected measures support its convergent validity. The ABII could be added to the clinician's toolbox as a screening test.

The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale has a long history of successful usage as the foremost psychometric instrument for the assessment of cognitive ability. Early versions of the instrument were concerned primarily with the prediction of school achievement and academic learning on the basis of an overall IQ score. The present fourth edition of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (Thorndike, Hagen & Sattler, 1986) is greatly advanced in design and construction over the previous Form L-M. It is, in this regard, both exhaustively comprehensive and concomitantly rather tedious and slow to administer, particularly when a detailed assessment is required. While the test authors claim that the full range of subtests takes only 60–90 minutes (no more than 13 of the 15 subtests can be given to any one individual and in practice, probably only six or seven may beadministered in any particular testing situation), the actual testing time may be significantly greater than this, depending on individual circumstances.

The results of independent field trials of the Individualised Classroom Environment Questionnaire are presented based on testing nearly 1500 high school students in NSW schools. The findings from this study are very similar to those originally presented by Fraser (1990) and hence constitute independent confirmatory evidence supporting its more widespread use in classroom research.

Introduced initially in relation to drug policy, ‘zero tolerance’ has become a catchphrase to describe attitudes and policies relating to drug use, violence and a range of antisocial behaviours. It has been used particularly within schools in the United States as a disciplinary policy since the 1980s. While broadly ascribed, zero tolerance is designed to send a message that targeted behaviours are not tolerated and will be punished. Zero tolerance assumes that swift and uncompromising action aimed at punishing the offender will result in ‘sending a strong message’ to other would-be offenders and deter others from similar antisocial behaviours. However, thirty years of research has shown zero tolerance policies to have failed the individual and the community, resulting instead in increased rates of misbehaviour and early referral to the juvenile and criminal justice systems. This has the potential to negatively impact on the person's mental health and future outcomes.

School-based intervention programs to assist students process their grief over a death or loss have been implemented in schools, with few evaluations of such programs.This study set out to report on the evaluation of Seasons for Growth, which is an education program for young people who have experienced the loss of a parent or significant other through separation, divorce or death. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to determine the program’s effectiveness for helping students cope with loss. The evaluation involved a total of 186 students aged between 12 and 18 years from eight schools in Australia. Results indicated that the Seasons for Growth program assisted female students cope with loss, with a less pronounced effect on coping in male students. Factors that may have reduced the effectiveness of the program were identified.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the family background, health-related conditions, and the developmental milestones of children identified with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). The parents of a sample of 17 children with DCD responded to questionnaires followed by an interview. The responses were analysed for family, health, and developmental background, psychosocial environment, limited movement opportunity, and hereditary factors. Many of the findings were consistent with issues identified in the literature, including demographic profiles, birth trauma, delayed physical developmental milestones, and hereditary factors. The sample included children with learning difficulties and children who were academically accelerated. Of particular interest were cases where limited participation in physical activiry might have curbed motor competence.

This study investigated family functioning, family stage and eating disorder risk. A sample of 140 females (aged 18–59) completed a family functioning questionnaire (ICPS) and the Eating Disorder Risk scale (EDI-3). Consistent with previous research, cluster analysis identified two profiles of family functioning: an authoritative style (high intimacy and high democratic parenting, with low conflict) and an authoritarian cluster (elevated conflict scores and significantly lower intimacy and democratic parenting). The second independent variable of family stage comprised two groups: females living in their family of origin and those living in their family of choice. The ANOVA showed no interaction involving family functioning cluster and family stage. A main effect showed that participants in the authoritarian cluster experienced significantly more drive for thinness, bulimic symptoms, body dissatisfaction and eating disorder risk. There was no difference in eating disorder risk between females living at home or those in the family of choice. The findings have implications for therapists in demonstrating that independence from the family of origin does not prompt natural recovery from eating disorder tendencies. The findings provide some further evidence of the association between specific elements of family functioning (intimacy, conflict and democratic parenting) with eating disorder risk.

Three delivery modes (facilitated by a teacher alone, facilitated by a teacher and supported by psychologist and delivered by the psychologist only) and two formats (paper and pencil vs. computer) of a coping skills program were compared and assessed for outcomes. The sample of 222 Year 8 students was drawn from a large government school in metropolitan Melbourne. Results indicated that a significant change was present across time, independent of delivery model. Analyses showed that the delivery groups changed differently across time. A significant change was obtained for the coping style Reference to Others. Participants in the Supported Teacher and Computer-based groups increased their usage of the coping style Reference to Others, whereas the Teacher Facilitated group decreased the use of this style. A significant change was obtained between time and delivery group for the strategies seeking social support and seeking professional help. The Supported Teacher and Computed-based groups increased their use of these strategies, while the Teacher Facilitated group decreased. The results suggest that implementation support may have enhanced program effectiveness.