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…

A moderated mediation analysis was performed on 3,600 (1,829 boys and 1,771 girls) adolescents from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). Results from a path analysis revealed that child self-efficacy mediated the relationship between mother control self-efficacy and child delinquency in girls but not in boys and that it mediated…

This study aimed to reignite the discussion of the elusive concept of teacher self-efficacy through the lens of Bandura's social cognitive theory and more specifically the Triadic Reciprocal Determinism model. It examined two commonly used teacher self-efficacy scales that were distributed to 154 Australian preservice teachers. Findings show that…

The concept of correlation arises in Unit 3 of General Mathematics in the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2010-present). University students will meet the topic in applied statistics subjects in courses on business, psychology, research methods as well as in mathematical subjects on probability and statistics. When students are introduced to the…

In 2020, Year 12 students at John Curtin College of the Arts, were required to model COVID-19 data from five different countries in order to find correlations between daily infections and unemployment rates, in order to make future predictions. Work received from students demonstrated how the task successfully provided unique learning…

There is good evidence for an association between poor reading and anxiety, but the mechanisms responsible for this association are currently unknown. In this study, we used structural equation modeling of four large longitudinal databases from the United Kingdom (n = 7,870), the United States (ns = 8,001 and 7,160), and Australia (n = 768) to…

This study investigated the interrelationships among university entrance score, career aspiration, academic major, and academic achievement, of foundation year students, at an overall level and at completion of each year level of a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree. Self-determination theory (SDT) was used as the underlying model for this study,…

This paper looks at students' motivation and engagement in the context of the "Read Like a Demon (RLAD)" project across a two-year period, in Melbourne, Victoria. This "RLAD" project was shaped over several years and targeted to students aged between 8 and 11 years. It utilized innovative reading experiences, including the…

Paradoxically, school leaders as a group report high levels of burnout but also high job satisfaction and passion for their work. School principals are passionate about their job, but this passion can be a double-edged sword leading to good (job satisfaction) and bad (burnout) outcomes. We extend the dualistic model of passion (DMP) in a study of…

This longitudinal study examines the relationship between young people's creative and performing arts participation (e.g., in dance, drama, film, music, visual arts) and their arts self-concept. Drawing on the positive youth development (PYD) framework and the reciprocal effects model (REM) of self-concept, a cross-lagged panel design is…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to combine seemingly unrelated factors to explain global competitiveness. The study argues that school discipline and education investment affect competitiveness with the association being mediated by educational performance. Crucially, diachronic effects of discipline on performance are tested to demonstrate…

Upright faces are thought to be processed more holistically than inverted faces. In the widely used composite face paradigm, holistic processing is inferred from interference in recognition performance from a to-be-ignored face half for upright and aligned faces compared with inverted or misaligned faces. We sought to characterize the nature of…

Our study examines the environmental knowledge (EK) and behavioural outcomes of students studying ecotourism in Sydney, Australia. Three competing models were tested to examine the relationships between EK, participation intention (PI) in ecotourism programs, landscape likeability (LL) and social interactions (SI); and the study also tested the…

Given that schools are, potentially, powerful sites for influencing adolescent behaviour, it is important that there is greater understanding of the psychosocial aspects of the school climate that can be leveraged for this purpose. The research reported in this article used structural equation modelling (with data from a sample of 6120 students at…

Teacher adaptability is an emerging construct in research on teacher effectiveness with evidence of links to improved outcomes for both teachers and students. This study examined the links between teacher adaptive practices and teacher self-efficacy, perceived autonomy support and teacher adaptability. The study found that only teacher…