Many studies have examined the psychology of interest and interest development, with these studies spanning various fields such as educational psychology, personality development, and vocational guidance. However, the pragmatic benefit of being able to accurately measure interests has often overshadowed the broader potential benefits of research into interest development. Drawing from research across different fields, this article summarises the historical evolution of research into interest development, culminating with the four-phase model of interest development as advanced by Hidi and Renninger (2006). It proceeds to examine the impact of this research on the work of psychologists and counsellors in schools. Finally, this article concludes by problematising the current dominance of assessment services and the use of interest inventories, while exploring potential opportunities to better support student engagement through a broader understanding of interest development.

This paper is based upon a study of issues of self and identity of Chinese students in an Australian high school and uses indigenous concepts mainly drawn from the work of Hong Kong psychologists. Research was initiated because identity appeared to be developing in a different way for Chinese students compared with their Anglo-Australian counterparts. The case study of Chinese Year 12 students provided a framework for understanding and counselling Chinese students. It is this framework that is discussed first. Second, a concept of self — Big Me and Little Me — is presented as a way of conceptualising the tensions of interdependent functioning. Finally, implications for counsellors and general issues emerging in the counselling situation are discussed.

Over the last decade, Australian Guidance Officers have been facing well documented challenges to their roles, training and their profession. This study surveyed 146 Guidance Officers and found them to report abnormally high stress levels but average burnout and self-efficacy scores. Previous research suggests that the most difficult aspect of the Guidance Officer's role, and the job for which they often feel least prepared, is dealing with the support needs of students with mental illness, emotional disturbance, behavioural and learning difficulties. Responses from Guidance Officers who deal with these students relatively often revealed significantly higher self-efficacy scores than the remainder of the group, higher emotional exhaustion (as anticipated) and reassuringly low depersonalisation scores. The good and bad news in these results are discussed and implications drawn for the profession.

This paper describes the development of two mechanisms that can be used to measure the learning outcomes of counselling. It is particularly important to encourage clients and adolescents who have participated in a counselling experience to reflect on what they have learned and how the experience has affected them. Adolescents over the age of 13 years have the metacognitive skills to be able to reflect on their learnings and should be encouraged to engage in such activity. This approach contrasts the dominant outcome paradigm of assessing behaviour and attitude changes over time by analysing group data using statistics and meta-analytic techniques. This paper expands the ideas reported by Burnett (1999), Burnett and Van Dorssen (2000), and Burnett and Meacham (2002).

Between the mid 1940's and the mid 1980's psychology, guidance and counselling services were established and rapidly expanded within Australian state departments of education. This occurred in a socio-political context where the values of social justice and concern for the disadvantaged were regarded as important by communities looking to governments to reflect these values through appropriate policies and programs. Since then a distinct change has occurred. Economic Rationalism and the move to greater school autonomy has led to the abandonment of central structures and centralised training that supported professional psychological services in schools. Schools increasingly will be expected to “buy in” contracted services as perceived needs arise. The resulting deprof essionalisation, whilst shared at this time by psychologists in other agencies, is particularly threatening in the case of school psychology. By destroying continuity of service and the possibilities of building of long-term relationships, it will reduce opportunities to initiate those school-wide initiatives that can maximise the impact of case work. The authors are of the view that, given the prevailing ideology, governments will persist in ridding themselves of responsibility and the expense of providing psychological and counselling services to school communities. At the same time information from principals suggests that schools' will find it difficult to afford these services from their limited global budgets, despite urgent and growing need for more, not less school-based support for teachers, students and parents. As a profession we must look to old and new models of service delivery and devise practical ways of providing cost-effective, equitable and high quality services to schools. This paper attempts to bring forward the issue as one for urgent debate and planning by our professional associations. Rather than let the profession wither away or end up providing services for the wealthy only, we must take action ourselves to see that it not only survives, but thrives. ( In this paper, the terms guidance officer, school counsellor and school psychologist are used as if they are interchangeable. The reason is that education departments around Australia use different names for those of their student support workers who have qualifications in education, psychology and counselling.)

The need to provide support for the mental health needs of children and young people is not in dispute. However, there does exist confusion as to the most appropriate means and methods of providing such support. This confusion is particularly evident among those who work closely in providing daily for the mental health needs of children and young people, yet who lack specific mental health training. The confusion is heightened by the fact that those who have developed expertise in mental health cannot offer a consensual approach. This article discusses this confusion and its implications for other sectors by considering some of the theoretical and practical debates in the psychological literature concerning the most effective approaches to mental health interventions. Some commonsense recommendations from this literature for those working with children are offered.

Alternative education and ‘off-campus’ units are becoming an increasing focus for Governments as a solution to the rise in behaviour problems in schools. Generally, the national response to the issue has been to promote an inclusive policy aimed at keeping young people in the education system and adapting curriculum to meet young people's needs rather than isolating them. This approach is supported by numerous studies demonstrating the low percentage of young people attending these units who actually return to the mainstream system. However, the Queensland Government is presently considering the development of ‘Off-campus’ education centres for young people with behaviour difficulties in each of the eleven regions throughout the state.

Guidance counsellors and psychologists have an important role in the alternative education scene. Their involvement can be multifaceted and extends into roles of support (student and teacher), intervention, advising, interagency, evaluation, assessment, counselling, referral collection, and so on. The Ipswich Off Campus Unit (OCU) – The Basement – is an alternative education program already existing in the City of Ipswich, Queensland, for long-term truanting young people. The program is jointly funded by the Ipswich Youth Action Group Pty Ltd and the Queensland Department of Education. This paper is based on an evaluation completed in 1993 of the Basement which utilised the Youth Self Report Form (Achenbach, 1991), Teacher Report Form (Achenbach, 1986), Family Review Form, Referral Satisfaction Questionnaire, Community Satisfaction Questionnaire, Observations, Juvenile Bureau Records, Attendance Records and Academic Records. It is proposed that the effects of an alternative school for truanting young people may provide many benefits and some concerns for the participating young person. The most observable change for young people in the program was the increased consistency of attendance rates and the lessening involvement in juvenile criminal activity. To support this contention, further longitudinal research and evaluation of alternative schools and programs for young people is encouraged.

The act of labelling is always wrought with uncertainties, as the mercurial history of Attention Deficit Disorder (now called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder-ADHD) reveals. Controversy has raged for years over the recognition, classification, naming, etiology and intervention of this disorder, resulting in a hotchpotch of treatments by professionals from the medical, educational and psychological fields (Whalen & Henker, 1991). Research has been prolific but results have been conflicting and controversial, especially in terms of overlap that occurs between ADHD and other disorders.

The aim of this study was to compare the effects of a didactic stress management program, group counselling, and a control group on school counsellors' stress coping strategies. Thirty-four school counsellors were randomly assigned to either a didactic stress management group, group counselling, or a control group. The didactic stress management group and the group counselling for stress management group were conducted concurrently for 10 consecutive weeks. A control group received no treatment. The Ways of Coping Inventory was administered to all participants at three different stages: pre-treatment, post-treatment, and at 6-month follow-up. The results indicated that both the didactic stress management group and the group counselling for stress management group showed a significant reduction in the use of helpless coping strategies and a significant increase in the optimistic coping strategies at post-treatment. At follow-up, there were obvious group differences in the use of helpless coping strategies. Only those who were treated using group counselling exhibited a decrease in helpless coping strategies at the follow-up assessment.

This study examined the mutual awareness of counsellors and clients about clients' problems and considered the extent to which counsellors and clients agreed about problems. To investigate these issues data were obtained by the administration of questionnaires to 10 school counsellors and their next 10 adolescent clients. Results suggested that counsellors were aware of client problems in 42% of cases. Clients were aware about how counsellors viewed their problems in 17% of cases. There was agreement between counsellor and client about client's problems in 22% of cases. Effects of a number of variables on perceptions about problems were also investigated. Type of referral (self, other) and approach taken by counsellor did not influence perceptions. Having background information about clients appeared to impede counsellors' awareness about problems and degree of agreement between counsellors and clients about the nature of problems. Number of previous interviews with clients and the length of experience of counsellors also affected counsellor/client perceptions.

The objective of this article is to outline factors for consideration in the successful engagement of adolescents in therapy. Adolescents face a number of barriers that can affect their ability to successfully engage with mental health clinicians (Booth, et al., 2004). Those working with this population should have a keen awareness of these barriers and their impact. As a first step, preparation for the initial interview with an adolescent is vital. Careful thought should be given to those involved in the assessment process and the manner of their involvement, giving the adolescent as much input as possible. The importance of an honest and respectful attitude should not be underestimated.

Adolescents with emotional and behavioural disorders (EBD) continue to struggle in the school environment. They may have difficulty connecting to their school environment as their engagement in challenging behaviour may have led to frequent school removal and high rates of school dropout, resulting in a breakdown of their school connectedness. The purpose of this study was to evaluate levels of school connectedness for adolescents with EBD attending self-contained classrooms and compare them to adolescents in general education. The School Connectedness Questionnaire (SCQ), measuring school bonding, school attachment, school engagement, and school climate, was administered to 50 students with EBD and to 50 general education students (n = 100). A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted. The results indicated that of the four domains of school connectedness, students with EBD reported significantly higher levels of school climate. These youth also reported significant differences on four specific items representing three of the four construct domains. The results indicate that adolescents with EBD may experience school differently. Researchers should continue to examine specially designed programs for students with EBD that emphasise explicit behavioural and academic expectations and social and emotional skill development and its impact on school connectedness for adolescents with EBD.

The aim of this study was to investigate high school students' perceptions of school-related problems. Some 1583 high school students responded to the 35 item High School Stressors Scale (Burnett & Fanshawe, 1997) which measures nine areas of problems experienced by adolescents in schools. These are Teaching Methods, Student-Teacher Relationships, School Workload, School Environment, Feeling Vulnerable, Personal Organization, Achieving Independence, Anxiety about the Future, and Relationships with Parents. The results are discussed and implications for educators, guidance officers and school psychologists working in high schools are presented.

The case is presented of a young boy with a rare chromosome disorder involving an interstitial deletion on chromosome 16 (16q11.2q13). Background information on chromosome disorders is presented along with a review of previous findings about the developmental consequences of chromosome 16q deletions. The case description illustrates the developmental and educational difficulties that may be associated with rare chromosome disorders and raises some important issues for guidance and counselling professionals.

For psychologists in less developed countries, psycho-educational assessment is often challenging due to a lack of specialist training and a scarcity of appropriate, psychometrically robust instruments. This article focuses on school psychology and psycho-educational assessment in three countries: Bangladesh, China and Iran. Despite differences in demographic and cultural features, these countries share similar issues that restrict the practice of psycho-educational assessment. We conclude that it is important for psychologists in Western countries to support professional training and testing practices in less developed countries.

This study investigated the effect of a mindfulness-based intervention on pathological symptoms in boys with externalised disorders. A total of 24 elementary school students with externalising disorders, diagnosed by completing the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), were randomly assigned to a mindfulness-based intervention for two months. One session per week was offered and each session lasted one hour (n = 12) or as a wait-list control group (n = 12). Data were analysed via a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) test. Students from the intervention group showed greater reductions in rule-breaking behaviours than those in the wait-list control group. Also, there was clear superiority of the intervention relative to the wait-list control group for reducing both aggression and rule-breaking behaviours (effect size differences were d = −2.52 and d = −1.88 respectively). These positive results on outcome measures provide initial evidence for a mindfulness-based intervention as a treatment option for boys with externalising disorders.