The aim of the study was to establish the Lakaev Academic Stress Response Scale (LASRS; Lakaev, 2006) as a valid and reliable measure of stress responses. The sample consisted of 375 Bond University students from several countries (142 Australia, 5 New Zealand, 68 United States, 8 Canada, 65 Asian, 66 Europe and 21 other) and from various levels of tertiary education (266 undergraduate and 109 postgraduate). Participants completed six self-report questionnaires that related to, acculturative stress, somatic stress symptoms, academic stress, stress responses, extraversion and general stress in order to determine convergent and divergent validity. The LASRS was shown to have sound psychometric properties and was suggested to be a sound way of measuring academic stress responses, particularly for Australian students. The results are discussed in terms of past tertiary academic stress research and suggestions for future investigations.

Recent understanding of education and human development recognises the importance of psychosocial factors, particularly personal resiliency, in the academic success of children and youth. This article presents the examination of resiliency within school settings for the purpose of preventive screening, intervention and outcomes assessment. The Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents (Prince-Embury, 2007) is described as an example of an instrument developed specifically for this purpose. This description identifies developmentally sound factors of personal resiliency that are relevant for children and youth in school settings. Also addressed are criteria of psychometric soundness required for universal screening and impact tracking, norm-based profiles of personal resiliency and summary indices of resource and vulnerability for use in screening.

An increasing number of school children are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). These children may be referred for assessments for a variety of reasons, including to assess for intellectual impairments, eligibility for support, or to monitor progress. Characteristics of ASD, such as social communication difficulties, as well as common comorbid conditions and behaviours, may make such assessments more challenging than for assessments with children without ASD. The present article overviews characteristics of ASD, challenges with assessment, and strategies to choose, prepare for, and complete a standardised assessment to provide information to assist psychologists and other professionals to complete a valid assessment of a child with ASD. Resources and recommendations for further reading are provided.

In this paper consideration is given to the problem of bullying in Australian Schools which a recent Federal Government enquiry into violence in schools has identified as a major concern. The thrust of the paper is to describe an intervention program based around the acronym P.E.A.C.E. (Preparation, Education, Action, Coping and Evaluation). School based evaluations of the P.E.A.C.E. Programme will be described to highlight its efficacy in reducing bullying in schools.

This study compared the coping strategies and styles of 30 learning disabled adolescents with 30 non learning disabled adolescents matched in age, gender and ethnicity from a large urban high school in Queensland. Results showed that the learning disabled adolescents use some different coping styles and strategies to their non learning disabled peers. The learning disabled group showed less tendency to relax, or work to achieve goals. They tended not to focus on the positive and not to attempt to solve problems. Rather they exhibited a higher tendency to use wishful thinking and believed that they could not cope. Cognitive and social skills deficits are proposed as the likely contributors to the differences. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The external and internal resources that individuals bring to the coping process have been the focus of increasing theoretical and empirical research. Within the framework of conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989, 2002) this study examines the interplay between school-, teacher- and peer-connectedness, and mastery, coping self-efficacy and coping behaviours in a sample of 300 9th and 10th grade high-school students. Structural equation modelling analyses supported predictions that coping self-efficacy and mastery mediate the effects of school connectedness factors on the utilisation of nonproductive coping strategies. While coping self-efficacy partially mediated the relationships between school connectedness factors and productive coping behaviours, contrary to expectations this relationship was not partially mediated by mastery. These results support a cognitive mediational model of coping resources and may have implications for school-based intervention programs that promote positive coping in adolescence.

This study examined the role of resilience in the lives of cyberbullying perpetrators and their victims. Turkish adolescents (n = 444; 245 girls, 55.2%, and 199 boys, 44.8%) 15–19 years of age (mean age of 16.58 years, SD = 0.789) were recruited from different high schools. The participants completed the Cyberbullying Scale (Arıcak, Kınay, & Tanrıkulu, 2012), the Cybervictimisation Scale (Arıcak, Tanrıkulu, & Kınay, 2012), and the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (Arslan, 2015). The data were analysed using Pearson's correlation coefficient and simple regression. The Pearson correlations revealed that there were negative and significant correlations between cyberbullying perpetration and resilience (r = −.146, p < .01). There were negative and significant correlations between cybervictimisation and resilience (r = −0.203, p < 0.01). Simple regression also revealed that resilience was a significant individual predictor for both cyberbullying perpetration (β = −0.146, t = −3.094, p < .001) and cyber victimisation (β = −0.203, t = −4.357, p < .001).

This study used a sample of 2173 high school students, enrolled in Years 8 to 12, to develop a 33-item shortened form (CDI-A-SF) of the Australian version of the 72-item Career Development Inventory (CDI-A). The long form of the CDI-A has been criticised for its length, difficulty and repetitive nature. The CDI-A-SF was devised with reference to content coverage and statistical criteria. Factor analysis of the short form indicated that, at the item level, subscale items loaded on their respective factors, and at the subscale level, the attitudinal and cognitive subscales loaded on the appropriate factors. Strong correlations were found between the CDI-A-SF and the CDI-A at the subscale, composite scale and total scale levels. Internal reliability coefficients for the CDI-A-SF at all levels were satisfactory to good. Initial validity for the CDI-A-SF was demonstrated by associations in the expected direction with career decidedness, self-esteem and decision-making self-efficacy, and by age and gender differences in the expected directions. The CDI-A-SF shows promise as a measure of career maturity where it is not possible or inappropriate to use the full version, although further research needs to replicate the findings and further test its validity.

Seeking help for mental health concerns is critical for improving wellbeing and preventing the development of mental health disorders, yet many adolescents with mental health problems fail to seek professional help. It is well established that young people with mental health problems face a variety of barriers to help-seeking; however, little is known about the ways in which these barriers interact to impact upon the help-seeking process. Guided by the reasoned action approach, this study investigated the predictive relationship between factors that influence help-seeking. Results revealed that mental health knowledge significantly predicted help-seeking intentions, while attitudes did not. Gender differences were identified for help source preferences. The current study contributes to knowledge on the relationship between key variables that influence the adolescent help-seeking process. Findings highlight the importance of mental health knowledge in predicting help-seeking intentions and provide support for interventions that focus on improving mental health literacy in adolescents.

The associations between adaptive/maladaptive perfectionism and different dimensions of aggression among adolescents have seldom been made the focus of empirical research. Research in this area is important as only negative conceptualisation of perfectionism, proposed within the literature, represents a limited perspective of perfectionism for adolescents. The purpose of this research was to investigate the relations between adaptive/maladaptive perfectionism and aggression in a sample of 445 Turkish high school adolescents. The Almost Perfect Scale — Revised (APS-R; Slaney, Rice, Mobley, Trippi, & Ashby, 2001) and the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ; Buss & Perry, 1992) were used for data collection. The subdimensions of the APS-R were high standards, order (adaptive perfectionism), and discrepancy (maladaptive perfectionism). The subdimensions of the BPAQ were anger, physical aggression, hostility and verbal aggression. As hypothesised, the regression analyses revealed that, discrepancy was the positive predictor of anger, physical aggression and hostility while order was the negative predictor of anger, physical and verbal aggression. As predicted, high standards were found to be the negative predictor of hostility. However, unexpectedly, high standards were found to be the positive predictor of verbal aggression.

Bullying is a stressful event for adolescents at school and was the fourth most common reason for calls to Kids Help Line in 2002. This study sought to examine coping styles used by students affected by bullying in Years 8 and 10 attending three Queensland high schools. Eighty-eight students completed the Bully Survey containing questions about bullying experiences and the way they coped in those situations. No year level differences were found in terms of the type of bullying experienced or the way in which students coped with these experiences. A significant interaction was found between duration of bullying and perceived control for the proportional use of disengagement coping (i.e., denial, avoidance and wishful thinking strategies). A significant simple main effect was found between perceived stressfulness and proportional use of involuntary engagement coping (i.e., rumination, intrusive thoughts, emotional arousal, physiological arousal and impulsive actions). Implications of these findings for schools are discussed.

We know that students' positive engagement with school is closely linked to their positive mental health. In particular, a positive engagement assists students to develop the human connections and resilience that reduces the risk of developing later mental health problems. What do students themselves say about what assists them to engage successfully with school? In particular, what is known of the views of students with high support needs in the area of mental health? The MindMatters Plus Project commissioned a review of existing studies of students' perspectives about engagement. This overview summarises the literature that typifies the three overlapping areas of school engagement, student voice and students with high support needs in the area of mental health, drawing on an extensive annotated bibliography of sources (available online at mmplus.agca.com.au/studeng_unheard_voices.php?x=13). The students about whom MindMatters Plus has a particular concern — those who are at greater risk of having high support needs in the area of mental health — are often less likely to voice their opinion and concerns to adults. As a consequence, less is known about what they are saying about factors that engage them with school — theirs are frequently ‘unheard voices’.

Enhancing coping skills of students at high risk of school dropout is critical, particularly when school demands increase. The data-based Check & Connect school engagement model, originally designed to reduce the risk for dropping out among secondary/middle school youth with learning and emotional/behavioural disabilities, is described. Also described in this article are the students' patterns of school engagement over time, for whom national US statistics indicate only 42 per cent to 61 per cent typically complete high school. Results indicate that the levels of school engagement vary and change over time, among these high risk adolescents, supporting the importance of focusing on alterable indicators of risk, rather than status predictor variables. Furthermore, students' risk for disengagement from school was significantly lower for the youth who received sustained intervention throughout grade nine, compared to similar youth who received intervention support throughout grade eight.

The psychoeducational report has many purposes and many readers. Given this, it is imperative that psychoeducational reports are well written, as well as acceptable to and understood by the readers. This study aimed to determine from the perspective of both teacher (report reader) and psychologist (report writer) the factors that make an effective psychoeducational report. The current study examined the effects of report style and language on satisfaction with and understanding and perceived utility of psychoeducational reports as rated by teachers and psychologists with varying degrees of experience. We expected that reports which contained a theme-based organisation and a lower grade reading level would receive significantly higher ratings of satisfaction and utility, and be understood by teachers and psychologists at significantly higher levels than reports with neither or only one of these two characteristics. Results indicated that while teachers in the present study were not more satisfied with the theme-based non-technical report and did not rate it as more useful, they did consider non-technical language easier to understand. Psychologists, in contrast, were not impacted by either variation in report style. The impact of differences between writer and reader on perceived understandability of reports is discussed.

A small-scale research study was undertaken to identify the impact of attention and working memory (WM) strategies for one Year 3 class over four lessons. A selection of eight strategies was embedded in everyday mathematics lessons, and the class teacher was supported to adjust lesson delivery and monitor students experiencing WM overload. Explicit student and teacher instruction was provided to learn how to understand and apply the strategies during lessons. The goals of this research were to increase teacher expertise in teaching strategies to improve WM and to encourage students to practise and self-monitor strategy use. Students’ academic engagement rose to 100% and all students increased their academic achievement outcomes.

Students with disabilities are at increased risk of experiencing mental health difficulties, but may not be recognised as an at-risk population in the design of school-based prevention and intervention efforts. Understanding the link between disability and mental health is important for school psychologists and guidance counsellors, teachers, and special education personnel who are in a position to provide targeted opportunities for social and emotional learning and to ameliorate the potential for marginalisation and isolation. This article reviews research related to mental health in students with disabilities, with a focus on understanding potential pathways between disability and mental health difficulties and examining the evidence for effective universal and targeted interventions. The research reviewed highlights the need for mental health promotion in schools to incorporate targeted approaches for at-risk students within the context of universal, whole-school approaches, and in particular to consider the mental health needs of students with disabilities.

The limited number of programs of tested efficacy in the literature such as cognitive-behavioural therapy and family-based prevention of internet addiction is striking. The aim of this study was to analyse the effect of reality therapy-based group counselling on college students’ problematic internet use and life satisfaction. In order to determine who would participate in the counselling program, screening tests were administered to 418 students. Twenty students who met the inclusion criteria eventually took part. The Online Cognition Scale and Life Satisfaction Scale were used pre- and posttests in order to evaluate the counselling program. Results show that reality therapy-based group counselling significantly reduces the level of problematic internet use among college students and increases their life satisfaction levels.

This study identified issues in school – and in life outside school – that caused significant worry for 120 Chinese adolescents (72 males, 48 females) attending a secondary school in Hong Kong. The study explored relationships existing among 3 variables comprising degree of worry, students' general self-efficacy, and their academic achievement. Findings indicated that the students' principal worries centred on school-related matters such as examinations, promotion to higher classes, and getting a job after graduation. Students also worried significantly about the health status of family members, and family finances. Differences in patterns of worry and in self-efficacy beliefs were found between lower- and higher-achieving students. No significant correlations were found among students' degree of worry, general self-efficacy, and achievement. Results are discussed from the perspective of Chinese culture, the Hong Kong education system, and support for students.

The study investigated whether social skills and problem behaviours of preschool children differ according to their cognitive styles. The sample group included 366 six-year-old children who attend preschools in Konya. Form A of the Kansas Reflection-Impulsivity Scale for Preschoolers (KRISP), developed by Wright (1971), was used to determine whether the participants had reflective or impulsive cognitive styles, while Preschool and Kindergarten Behaviour Scales (PKBS), developed by Merrell (2003), were used to evaluate social skills and problem behaviour dimensions. Results found that impulsive children were less efficient than reflective children in regards to their social cooperation and social interaction skills, and they exhibited more problem behaviours like self-centred/explosive behaviours, lack of attention/hyperactivity, antisocialism/aggression and social withdrawal.

Recent epidemiological studies in Australia have found that adolescent mental health issues are an important public health problem (Sawyer et al., 2001). These problems are often manifested in the classroom. As many as one in five Australian children aged from 4 to 17 have significant mental health concerns (Zubrick, Silburn, Burton, & Blair, 2000). However, only one in four of these young people receive professional help (Sawyer et al., 2001). To assist in preventing these problems, schools in Australia have been trialling innovative strategies in mental health promotion, prevention and intervention such as the Gatehouse Project and MindMatters. When selected or indicated prevention strategies are employed there is a need for identification of those students either at-risk or who have mild symptoms of a disorder. This process needs to be efficient and effective, using multiple informants and multi-methods. This article reports on the process utilised by two Australian high schools that trialled an identification process for at-risk students for anxiety/depression using indicated prevention programs. The benefits of using teachers, support staff and student self-identification are discussed.