Social anxiety is a common mental disorder with an average age of onset in early adolescence. Current theories focus largely on risk factors that are present from early in life, but reasons for onset of the disorder as youth move into adolescence are rarely discussed. We recently proposed a model of the onset of certain mental disorders during the…

Discussions of support and intervention in undergraduate university education are dominated by discussion of attrition. This study quests more broadly in arguing that support and intervention for undergraduate students may also benefit from models of engagement and success as well as conventional risk and failure. Supporting this proposition is a…

This paper investigates reasoned risk-taking in decision-making by school principals using a methodology that combines sequential use of psychometric and traditional measurement techniques. Risk-taking is defined as when decisions are made that are not compliant with the regulatory framework, the primary governance mechanism for public schools in…

Purpose: Evidence indicates that active school travel (AST) including walking can effectively lower levels of obesity among school-age children. Yet Queensland has been identified as one of the most inactive states in Australia where only 5 per cent of Years 1 and 5 children engaged in AST on a daily basis. The purpose of this paper is to explain…

This paper explores a theoretical dilemma that arose during a study of risk-taking in decision-making for public school principals in Western Australia. Western Australia is one of six Australian States. It is geographically diverse, including extremely remote schools serving Indigenous communities. The governance mechanism for public schools in…

Academic buoyancy has been defined as a capacity to overcome setbacks, challenges, and difficulties that are part of everyday academic life. Academic resilience has been defined as a capacity to overcome acute and/or chronic adversity that is seen as a major threat to a student's educational development. This study is the first to examine the…

Building on interpersonal theories of depression, the current study sought to explore whether early childhood social withdrawal serves as a risk factor for depressive symptoms and diagnoses in young adulthood. The researchers hypothesized that social impairment at age 15 would mediate the association between social withdrawal at age 5 and…