Barriers to healthcare experienced by Australian autistic adults have not been previously explored. We conducted a cross-sectional investigation of barriers to healthcare and associated factors from a subtle realism perspective. Perceived barriers to healthcare were obtained from the Barriers to Healthcare Checklist Short-Form (BHC). A total of…

Adaptability (the capacity to respond to uncertainty, change, and novelty) and buoyancy (the ability to respond to everyday and low-level adversity) have emerged as personal attributes that appear to play an important role in students' adaptive responses in an academic setting. However, the extent to which these capacities are associated with…

Loneliness in adolescence is a risk factor for the development and maintenance of a myriad of mental health conditions, especially among females. Adolescent females in boarding schools spend prolonged periods away from family and may therefore be more prone to experiencing loneliness and depression. Research into this significant issue is limited,…

Co-occurring problems with mood and anxiety among adolescents and adults on the autism spectrum are highly prevalent and contribute to poor outcomes and diminished quality of life. The current study's principal aim was to evaluate variation in the presentation of depression symptomatology among adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder,…

Public speaking and oral assessments are common in higher education, and they can be a major cause of anxiety and stress for students. This study was designed to measure the student experience of public speaking assessment tasks in a mandatory first-year course at a regional Australian university. The research conducted was an instrumental case…

This report details the findings from initial research seeking to improve the pedagogical confidence of pre-service STEM teachers by encouraging emotional literacy in the form of affect awareness. The report discusses how affect was measured for the study, what the affect outcomes were and how these measures are conceptually related to improving…

Vygotsky (1986) draws attention to the interrelationship between thought and language and other aspects of mind. Although not widely acknowledged, Vygotsky (1999) also drew attention to the search for the relations between cognition and emotions. This paper discusses the findings of a study which examined imaginary scientific situations within the…

Understanding how candidates cope with the demands of PhD candidature is important for institutions, supervisors and candidates. Individual differences in affective and metacognitive disposition were explored in 263 PhD candidates from two Australian universities. Several questionnaires relating to affective and metacognitive beliefs were…

This paper presents results of an investigation exploring the experience and functionality of positive feelings and emotions in learning and teaching. The role of emotions in learning is receiving increasing attention; however, few studies have researched how university students and academics experience and perceive positive emotions. A prototype…

This descriptive pilot study examined the cultural differences in the dimensions of self-reported anger in Indigenous and non-Indigenous (Caucasian) students aged 10-13 years in Far North Queensland, Australia. The Multidimensional School Anger Inventory-Revised (MSAI-R) (Boman, Curtis, Furlong, & Smith, 2006) was used to measure affective,…

Emotions play an important part in learning and are known to influence human development. The positive emotions of enjoyment and interest are thought to contribute to learning in distinctive ways, yet this distinction tends to be blurred in some learning research. This paper explores the role these two emotions play in the development of…

Empathy is an essential building block for successful interpersonal relationships. Atypical empathic development is implicated in a range of developmental psychopathologies. However, assessment of empathy in children is constrained by a lack of suitable measurement instruments. This article outlines the development of the Kids' Empathic…

The Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) literature is replete with competing theories detailing the mechanisms underlying the construction and maintenance of SWB. The current study aimed to compare and contrast two of these approaches: multiple discrepancies theory (MDT) and an affective-cognitive theory of SWB. MDT posits SWB to be the result of perceived…

A pilot study was conducted in a regional university setting to promote awareness of the value of affective teaching and learning amongst staff and students. Academic staff and students from diverse disciplines at University of South Australia's (UniSA) Centre for Regional Engagement (CRE) were recruited to the study. The research investigated…

In the early childhood education field, the way children are conceptualised has substantially shifted in recent times. Child development theory has been unsettled as the single canon of early childhood practice. This has in turn challenged constructions of educators as keepers of a universal knowledge base, and as apolitical, non-interventionist…