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…

Two alternative versions of a model of the cognitive decision-making processes of gifted and talented adolescents associated with occupational or career indecision were tested in this study. A psychometrically rigorous survey instrument was used to collect data from 664 adolescents attending three academically selective high schools in Sydney,…

Student motivation research seeks to uncover greater understanding of when, how, and why students succeed or fail in school settings. Self-determination theory has been at the forefront of helping educational stakeholders answer questions on student motivation. This study investigates the motivation mediation model proposed by self-determination…

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 article focuses on a Personalised Learning model which has 19 scales that were used to evaluate regional students' perceptions of their readiness to learn, assessment processes, engagement, extent to which their learning is personalised and their associations with academic efficacy, academic achievement and student well-being. The data came…

Three competing models of the career decision-making thought processes of adolescents of high intellectual ability were tested in this study. Survey data were collected from 664 intellectually gifted Australian adolescents and analyzed using structural equation modeling procedures. The finally accepted, optimal model suggested that, regardless of…

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…

A mixed-methods design was employed to identify the cognitive processes that lead to occupational/career indecision for economically disadvantaged adolescents of high intellectual ability. In the first phase, interview data collected from 26 economically disadvantaged intellectually gifted Australian adolescents were analyzed using grounded theory…

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…

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…

Higher education institutions typically express the quality of their degree programs by describing the qualities, skills, and understanding their students possess upon graduation. One promising instructional design approach to facilitate institutions' efforts to deliver graduates with the appropriate knowledge and competencies is curriculum…

Research suggests that motivated students and those with high academic self-concepts perform better academically. Although substantial evidence supports a reciprocal relation between academic self-concept and achievement, there is less evidence supporting a similar relation between achievement goal orientations and achievement. There is also a…

This study developed and empirically tested two related models of the occupational/career decision-making processes of gifted adolescents using a competing models strategy. The two models that guided the study, which acknowledged cultural orientations, social influences from the family, occupational/career values, and characteristics of…

Biggs' 3P (Presage-Process-Product) model, a key framework in Student Learning Theory, provides a powerful means of understanding relations between students' perceptions of the teaching and learning environment, learning strategies, and learning outcomes. While influential in higher education, fewer tests of the model in secondary education…