Among a sample of 472 Indigenous high school students, juxtaposed with 15,884 non-Indigenous students from the same 54 schools, we investigated variation in motivation and engagement from school to school, and the role of motivation and engagement in predicting various academic outcomes (aspirations, buoyancy, homework completion, and…

Parenting behaviors have been linked to children's self regulation, but it is less clear how they relate to adolescent psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility is a broad construct that describes an individual's ability to respond appropriately to environmental demands and internal experiences in the service of their goals. We examined…

Most traditional models of academic motivation focus on a small number of specific factors. However, the Student Motivation and Engagement Scale (MES) (Martin, 2007b) includes a fairly comprehensive range of perspectives on general student motivation. The current study set out (a) to provide an independent test of the proposed 11-factor structure…

This paper presents a research-based framework for analyzing and monitoring students' understanding of functions in equation form. The framework consists of "growth points" which describe "big ideas" of students' understanding of the concept. The data were collected from Grades 8, 9, and 10 students using a set of tasks…

"Streaming" for mathematics remains a contentious issue and particular forms of the practice have been considered inequitable. In the study reported here, the focus was on the extent to which streaming is used for mathematics at years 7-10 in Victorian secondary schools. Also of interest were the forms of streaming adopted and the…

Existing research posits multiple dimensions of bullying and victimization but has not identified well-differentiated facets of these constructs that meet standards of good measurement: goodness of fit, measurement invariance, lack of differential item functioning, and well-differentiated factors that are not so highly correlated as to detract…

The aim of this research was to explore Australian high-school students' argumentation and informal reasoning about biotechnology. Data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with 10 Year-8 students (12-13 years old), 14 Year-10 students (14-15 years old) and 6 Year-12 students (16-17 years old) from six metropolitan high schools in Perth,…

This paper outlines early findings from the Tasmanian-based Social Norms Analysis Project (SNAP). The Social Norms model is presented as a theoretically informed, evidence-based model for reducing alcohol-related harm in youthful populations by utilising the complex and often positive contributions peer groups make to adolescent health and…

A sense of interdependence, in terms of relations with other individuals, groups, and institutions, is at the heart of the social outcomes of schooling. This paper investigates the views of school students in late primary and middle secondary school about the importance to them of relating constructively with others, commitment to community…

A survey was conducted among 692 Australian 13-to 16-year-olds to examine aspects of their Internet use and, in particular, their exposure to inappropriate material and behaviors online and their online safety practices. Significant differences were found in the amount of exposure to inappropriate material or behaviors online according to sex and…

This study investigated the peer victimisation and conflict resolution experiences of adolescent girls attending a single-sex school. A modified version of the Direct and Indirect Aggression Scales (DIAS, Bjorkqvist, Osterman, and Kaukiainen, 1992) and conflict resolution scales, drawn particularly from the work of Feldman and Gowen (1998), were…

Findings from a survey administered to large numbers of grade 7-10 students are presented in this paper. The focus is on the students' attitudes towards the use of computers for the learning of mathematics. Background information was also gathered which allowed the students' responses to be analysed by a range of equity factors--gender, ethnicity,…