Australian High School Research Articles

Chemical Analysis and Flavour Distribution of Electronic Cigarettes in Australian Schools.

Adolescent usage of electronic cigarettes has increased globally. Inconsistent, or absent, labelling of nicotine and other ingredients requires chemical analysis to accurately determine the chemical composition of these products. Electronic cigarettes confiscated from public and private high school students (N=598) were provided for analysis from three regions in New South Wales, Australia. The products were examined for brand, model and flavour and a subset were further analysed for chemical composition (n=410) quantifying nicotine, synthetic cooling agents, flavouring chemicals and prohibited ingredients by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The majority of samples provided were fruity-flavoured disposable e-cigarettes across three main brands (IGET, HQD and Gunnpod). Nicotine was quantified in 97.3% of disposable samples with an average concentration of 40.0mg/mL while one refill e-liquid was found to contain nicotine at a low concentration. Almost all samples contained the coolant WS-23 in relatively high concentrations compared to other flavouring chemicals present. Chemicals prohibited under the TGO110 (Australian e-cigarette product standard) were identified in 3.4% of the samples which were chemically analysed. This included the presence of ethylene glycol in moderately high concentrations (up to 13.2mg/mL). Australian students' preferences for fruity, disposable e-cigarettes were identified regardless of region with the vast majority containing high concentrations of nicotine. WS-23 was found in most disposable e-cigarettes, potentially to reduce the throat irritation from nicotine and other flavouring chemicals. The inhalational safety of the samples is of concern due to health risks associated with detected prohibited compounds, particularly ethylene glycol. This is the first study to quantify nicotine, coolants and flavouring chemicals in ecigarette products seized from Australian high school students and has significant implications for future policy development. Students appear to be almost exclusively using disposable ecigarettes with high nicotine concentrations and predominately fruity flavours. WS-23 may potentially be added to disposable e-cigarettes to facilitate the uptake of these products by adolescents unaccustomed to the throat irritation from nicotine and intense flavours. The ecigarette coils were found to have degraded over time, potentially affecting the composition of the aerosol and leaching of metals.

“Poetry is on its way back up”: a spoken word performer’s contribution to young people’s engagement with poetry

ABSTRACT The presence of spoken word poets at school can prove to be engaging for young people, especially if used to complement the work conducted by enthusiastic teachers of poetry. By means of an evaluation of a spoken word residency at an Australian high school, this article discusses some of the opportunities and challenges associated with the attempt to engage young people with the genre. The case study’s research data was collected by means of observation of the residency and semi-structured interviews with the poet leading it and the teacher who organized it. In the article it is argued that while students are encouraged to develop their conceptions of poetry and perceive it as engaging, it is important to democratize participation in spoken word activities and enhance teachers’ own engagement.

Are We Really Falling Behind? Comparing Key Indicators Across International and Local Standardised Tests for Australian High School Science

AbstractThere has been a strong narrative in Australia of falling attainment in high school science, with much of the campaign informed by results from international standardised tests such as Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which shows a year-on-year decline in scientific literacy of Australian 15-year-old students. These results have been used to justify significant policy and curriculum reform, despite the known limitations of PISA and a lack of additional evidence to support this decline in other tests. In this paper, results from standardised tests administered in Australia will be compared to create a fulsome picture of attainment for high school science students. Reports include both the compilation of data from existing reports and new analyses. With the latest (2018/9) reports from PISA, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and National Assessment Program for Scientific Literacy (NAP-SL) (an Australian test of Science Literacy) and data shared by the NSW Department of Education on ‘The Validation of Assessment for Learning and Individual Development’ (VALID) test for the years 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, this offers the most complete picture of student attainment in science to date. Results show that there are disagreements between tests on cohort achievement over time and distribution of attainment at different ‘proficiency levels’. These results suggest caution when using these key results from these tests to inform policy and pedagogy.

Ways of responding to body image threats: Development of the Body Image Flexibility and Inflexibility Scale for youth

Body image flexibility shows promise for understanding positive body image in young people. However, its adaptive functions remain unclear due to the lack of youth-oriented models and existing focus on inflexibility in unidimensional measures. This study developed a measure of body image flexibility and inflexibility for youth by adapting the Multidimensional Psychological Flexibility Inventory (MPFI) with 724 male and female Australian high school and university students aged 11 to 30 years. The Body Image Flexibility and Inflexibility Scale (BIFIS) replicated the higher-order MPFI structure (flexibility and inflexibility), with modifications required to lower-order factors to achieve acceptable fit. The final model (24 items; two higher-order and eight lower-order factors) was invariant across gender and age cohorts. The higher-order body image flexibility and inflexibility factors were internally consistent, stable over one month, correlated in expected directions with adaptive and maladaptive body image and eating constructs and well-being, and explained adaptive outcomes beyond measures of body satisfaction and unidimensional body image flexibility. The BIFIS provides a way to measure how young people respond to body image threats and expands existing conceptual models by including adaptive and maladaptive processes. Future work could refine the items, further validate the factor structure, and consider more experiential measurement formats.

What do secondary teachers think about digital games for learning: Stupid fixation or the future of education?

Digital games can support learning across many levels and fields of education. This article shares findings from a study of Australian high school English teachers designed with a mixed response questionnaire about using digital games in the classroom. The findings identified polarised teacher perspectives on the role of gaming in formal curriculum, tension in teachers’ ideal and enacted use of digital games, and a need for in-practice professional development on digital games. Implications include the need to optimise digital games use for learning in teaching and teacher education, and to address perceptions on the validity of gaming for classroom learning.

Religious reactions to gender identity: a comparative analysis of select Canadian and Australian Catholic schools

ABSTRACT Determining the depth of discrimination against gender and sexual minority groups in Catholic schools of selected western nations is best undertaken from an international-comparative perspective. In this article, we compare the Canadian case of Alberta’s ‘washroom wars’ and a ‘gender row’ over uniform changes in an Australian Catholic high school. In each case, practises inclusive of gender diversity in Catholic schools were framed as a departure from Catholic doctrine. To explore how oppressive structures exist and operate within schools, we examine media accounts of each case using Critical Discourse Analysis and contextualize this analysis by examining Canadian and Australian educational and legal settings. We find that despite differing legal frameworks, some Catholic schools continue to place Canonical law above the rights of transgender and gender-diverse students in both countries. We therefore argue that it is the Catholic system’s institutional stance on gender and sexual diversity that perpetuates discrimination.

Students’ in-class impression management: Comparing models for measuring student strategies of self-presentation

This paper addresses an issue that has largely been neglected in educational research so far: students’ impression management. Impression management is defined as an individual’s active effort to present the self in a certain, usually positive way. Owing to a lack of empirical studies on students’ impression management at class, we primarily pursued the basic aim of designing an instrument for analyzing deliberate student tactics of self-presentation. Its development was based on work on school-specific coping strategies. Construct validity and criterion validity were tested in a sample consisting of 201 Austrian high school students. The results indicated that a correlative five-dimensional factor structure fit the data best. Furthermore, students with higher scores on the presented and appearing self also scored higher on most dimensions of the Impression Management scale than their peers who cared less about their teacher’s perception. These findings raise the question of what types of impression management can be deemed functional with respect to academic success.

Students' perceptions of the rules and restrictions of gender at school: A psychometric evaluation of the Gender Climate Scale (GCS).

Research in the field of gender and sexuality diversity and, more specifically, negative attitudes toward gender and sexuality diverse individuals, has acknowledged the relationship between individuals' endorsement of sex-differentiated, normative gender roles and their attitudes toward gender and sexuality diversity. Such work has highlighted how normative expectations of gender, drawn from binarized gender roles, sit at the heart of homophobic and transphobic attitudes. Previous research in high school settings has measured gender and sexuality diverse (GSD) students' experiences of homo/transphobic harassment as an element of 'school climate' with regard to acceptance of gender and sexuality diversity. However, to date, no research has measured GSD students' perceptions about how valued binarized, gender-normative roles are at their schools, or the ways in which these norms might impact, and potentially constrain, these students' academic and social schooling lives. The aim of the present study was to address this gap by developing and testing a new, multidimensional measure (the Gender Climate Scale; GCS) of GSD students' ideas about how gender norms function within their school. Using a convenience sample of 2,376 Australian high school students who identify as GSD, the GCS was evaluated for its reliability, construct, and criterion validity and measurement invariance using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) methods. Findings revealed that the estimates produced from the GCS were reliable, valid, and invariant across student reported gender (male/female/non-binary) and location (urban/rural). Criterion validity was supported, with GCS factors representing the promotion of traditional gender roles in the schooling environment negatively associated with perceived school belonging and inclusion and positively associated with bullying and social isolation. Future research with the GCS can inform school and curriculum policy on this important measure of school climate, not just for GSD students but for whole student cohorts.

Anthropometry and Physical Performance in 13-Year-Old Australian Talent-Identified Male and Female Athletes Compared to an Age-Matched General Population Cohort.

Talent-identified male and female athletes are assumed to have greater speed and power than the general population at a given age. However, a comparison of the jump and sprint performance of an Australian cohort of male and female youth athletes from various sports to age-matched controls has not occurred. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare anthropometric and physical performance markers between ~13-year-old talent-identified youth athletes and general population Australian youth. The anthropometry and physical performance in talent-identified youth athletes (n = 136, 83 males) and general population youth (n = 250, 135 males) were tested during the first month of the school year in an Australian high school within a specialized sports academy. Talent-identified females were taller (p < 0.001; d = 0.60), sprinted faster (20 m: p < 0.001; d = -1.16), and jumped higher (p < 0.001; d = 0.88) than general population youth females. Similarly, talent-identified males sprinted faster (20 m: p < 0.001; d = -0.78) and jumped higher (p < 0.001; d = 0.87) than general population youth males, but were not taller (p = 0.13; d = 0.21). Body mass was not different between groups for males (p = 0.310) or females (p = 0.723). Overall, youth, particularly females, who are trained in a variety of sports, exhibit greater speed and power during early adolescence compared to their age-matched peers, with anthropometric differences only occurring in females at 13 years of age. Whether talented athletes are selected because they exhibit these traits or whether speed and power are developed through sport participation requires further investigation.

Examination of bidirectional relationships between fear of negative evaluation and weight/shape concerns over 3 years: A longitudinal cohort study of Australian adolescents.

Adolescents commonly experience both fear of negative evaluation and weight/shape concerns. However, evidence concerning the prospective associations between these constructs during adolescence is limited. The current study examined the bidirectional relationships between fear of negative evaluation and weight/shape concerns over a 3-year period in adolescents. Australian high school students (n=2073; 55% girls) completed self-report measures at three timepoints, each 1 year apart. Findings showed a bidirectional relationship, whereby increases in fear of negative evaluation predicted exacerbated weight/shape concerns, and vice versa. Results point towards a vicious maintenance cycle between fear of negative evaluation and weight/shape concerns. Findings from the current study highlight the importance of considering both fear of negative evaluation and weight/shape concerns in the development of health promotion and prevention programs designed to reduce the occurrence and adverse effects of body dissatisfaction or improve general mental health. Many adolescents experience some level of fear of negative evaluation (i.e., worry about being judged by others) and worry about their weight and/or shape. This study examined the prospective relationship between both constructs. Findings showed a bidirectional relationship, whereby higher fear of negative evaluation predicted increased weight/shape concerns, and vice versa. Programs designed to reduce body dissatisfaction might be improved by targeting both fear of negative evaluation and weight/shape concerns.

Mapping gendered affects: an inquiry into student feelings on entry to an Australian selective STEM high school

ABSTRACT This paper emerged from an original concern regarding female under-representation in STEM fields. My concern soon morphed into considering what it feels like to be(come) as a girl student in school. Feelings produced during pedagogical events impact students’ ability to continue with their engagement, participation in, and choices about, their schooling and life trajectories. I inquire into teenagers’ accounts of pedagogical encounters that produced feelings of happiness, discomfort, fear, and anxiety. Drawing on theories of affect, new materialism and posthumanism, I think through the material consequences of negative affects felt by girls whilst undergoing school experiences and consider how these may be amplified in subjects and trajectories traditionally dominated by boys. This paper creates a cartography with Year 10 students’ felt experiences recorded through a questionnaire at an Australian selective STEM school. Student responses illustrate how pedagogical processes are complicit in the ‘making of’ gender as both binary and hierarchical, and how gendered affects have consequences. I speculate that attention to providing affirming affective pedagogical events may amplify girls’ and other disadvantaged students’ capacity so they may grow to feel just as entitled to success within boy-dominated spaces such as STEM.

Disentangling motivation and engagement: Exploring the role of effort in promoting greater conceptual and methodological clarity.

Conflation over motivation and engagement has historically impeded research and practice. One reason for this is because definition and measurement have often been too general or diffuse-especially in the case of engagement. Recently conceptual advances aimed at disentangling facets of engagement and motivation have highlighted a need for better psychometric precision-particularly in the case of engagement. To the extent that engagement is inadequately assessed, motivation research involving engagement continues to be hampered. The present study investigates multidimensional effort (a specific facet of engagement) and how it relates to motivation. In particular, we examine the associations between specific positive and negative motivation factors and dimensions of effort, thereby shedding further insight into how different types of motivation interplay with different types of engagement. Drawing on data from a sample of 946 Australian high school students in 59 mathematics classrooms at five schools, this study hypothesized a tripartite model of academic effort in terms of operative, cognitive, and social-emotional dimensions. A novel nine-item self-report Effort Scale measuring each of the three factors was developed and tested for internal and external validity-including its relationship with multidimensional motivation. Multilevel confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the factor structure and validity of multidimensional effort. Additionally, doubly-latent multilevel structural equation models were conducted to explore the hypothesized motivation → engagement (effort) process, and the role of student- and classroom-level background attributes as predictors of both motivation and effort. Results supported the hypothesized model of tripartite effort and its distinctiveness from motivation, and showed that key dimensions of motivation predicted effort at student- and classroom-levels. This study provides implications and suggestions for future motivation research and theorizing by (1) establishing evidence for the validity of a novel engagement framework (multidimensional effort), and (2) supporting future measurement and practice in academic engagement juxtaposed with multidimensional motivation-critical for better understanding engagement, and motivation itself.

Procedural mathematical knowledge and use of technology by senior high school students

The article at hand deals with students’ procedural knowledge, the frequency of technology use (CAS, graphics calculators) during mathematics education in upper secondary level and their self-assessed technology knowledge. In this study, the participating students (representative sample of Austrian high school students in the final year, n=455) had to solve procedural, curriculum-related tasks without any aids (neither technology nor formula booklets). We examined how the frequency of technology use in the classroom affects the students’ success rate on procedural tasks. On average, GeoGebra or graphic calculators with CAS are used once a week by the teacher and the students in class, respectively, and unexpectedly, there is no significant correlation between the frequency of technology use during mathematics education in upper secondary level and the procedural knowledge acquired. Regardless of the success in solving the procedural tasks, the students rate their technology knowledge for solving the procedural tasks as rather high.

Content analysis of textbooks (political knowledge, applied economics, organization and management) of Austria's high school course on the main and basic principles of social responsibility

In the last decade, social responsibility emerged as a field of study that was previously called "Urban Education and Citizenship". This new concept is much broader, in the sense that it means the development of social skills that enable a person to be a responsible and active member of the larger society and political community. In this regard, education has a key and essential role, and in fact, the main challenge in the education system is to match the society's culture with the patterns and goals. Social responsibility, as one of the main goals of educational planners in coding the textbooks, must be considered. To understand and investigate this issue, high school textbooks in Austria, due to having the most advanced and accepted educational systems in the world, were evaluated. This article aims to determine the components of social responsibility in the content of Austrian high school textbooks (teaching political knowledge, applied economics, organization and management), based on qualitative content analysis. It seeks to answer the question that to what extent the social responsibility has been considered in these textbooks? Results show that the economic dimension of social responsibility has been considered more than the social dimension in the mentioned books.

Let the precious hidden values shine brightly: A collective project with high school boys

This paper documents collective narrative practice in an Australian high school with students from refugee backgrounds and their families. Teachers were concerned about the students’truancy and their behaviour in class. I met with a group of boys to develop a counter story of their knowledge about respect. Drawing on their family and cultural backgrounds, the boys shared rich understandings about ways of demonstrating respect, and about its value. The documents they developed will be shared with their school community and with young people at other schools.

Has the COVID-19 pandemic strengthened confidence in managing the climate crisis? Transfer of efficacy beliefs after experiencing lockdowns in Switzerland and Austria.

In the spring of 2020, countries introduced lockdowns as radical measures to deal with the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to strong disruptions of people's everyday lives. Such drastic collective measures had previously seemed inconceivable in relation to other urgent crises, such as the climate crisis. In this paper, we ask how individual, participatory, and collective efficacy beliefs in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic transferred to efficacy beliefs regarding the climate crisis. We present comparative results from two surveys: Study 1 assesses efficacy beliefs among German-speaking Swiss residents (n = 1,016), shortly after lockdown measures were relaxed. Study 2 compares changes in efficacy beliefs among Austrian high school students (n = 113) before and after the lockdown. In Study 1, climate-related self- and participatory efficacy are enhanced by the corresponding COVID-19-related beliefs. Climate-related efficacy beliefs mediate the effect of COVID-related counterparts on climate-friendly behavior and policy support. Study 2 shows that COVID-19-related efficacy beliefs are transferred to climate-related counterparts over time, and that the transfer of participatory efficacy is moderated by perceived similarity of the two crises. Experiencing successful individual and collective action during the COVID-19 pandemic seems to inspire confidence in dealing with climate change. Underlying processes (direct transfer, consistency, awareness-raising, learning) are discussed.

Henry Hamlet's Heart by Rhiannon Wilde

Reviewed by: Henry Hamlet's Heart by Rhiannon Wilde Aaren Tucker Wilde, Rhiannon Henry Hamlet's Heart. Charlesbridge, 2022 [336p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781623543693 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781632893475 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 9-12 Henry Hamlet is many things: a good student, school captain, leader of the debate club. He is also the unfortunate possessor of the nickname "Spew Grant" after projectile vomiting on a girl's shoes. Although Henry has definitely learned that he and underage drinking are not a good mix, he nevertheless finds himself imbibing at another party he doesn't really want to attend. When someone dares Henry's best friend, Lennon Cane, to kiss Henry, their drunken lip-lock turns heated, and Henry suddenly has a new set of problems to cope with. Is it possible to turn your best friend into your boyfriend without losing the friendship you already have? And will commitment-phobic Len stick around or break Henry's heart? This Australian import and Wilde's debut is a sweet, if a little directionless, slice-of-life about two teens fumbling their way toward each other, with plenty of mistakes on both sides. Set in Brisbane in 2008, the not-so-distant past does not feel all that different from today; more unique is the location, and U.S. readers will find it interesting to compare Australian and American high school life. Minimalist dialogue can sometimes leave readers behind, but Henry's first-person narration fills in the gaps. Complete with grand romantic gestures and a slightly overwrought ending, this otherwise understated novel will delight romance fans, particularly those of Benjamin Alire Sáenz's Aristotle & Dante books. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Positive, complicated, distant, and negative: How different teacher-student relationship profiles relate to students' science motivation.

Researchers note a consistent decline in adolescents' motivation and participation in science. It is important to examine factors vital to students' motivation in science, such as teacher-student relationships (TSRs). Limited research in science has examined TSRs from a multidimensional or person-centered perspective. The present investigation adopts Ang's tripartite relational framework to examine three dimensions of TSRs: socio-emotional support, instrumental help, and conflict. Such research is needed to better understand the diversity of relationships that exist within a science classroom and their impact on science motivation. This study examined N = 2669 Australian high school students (66% girls; Mage = 15.11 years; SD = 0.69). Data were collected via online sampling in the final quarter of 2020. The data are cross-sectional. Latent profile analysis was used to (1) determine if distinct student profiles based on the three dimensions of TSRs existed and (2) the extent to which these profiles were associated with varying levels of science motivation: self-efficacy, intrinsic value, utility value, and cost. Four distinct profiles were identified: Positive, Complicated, Distant, and Negative. Students in the Negative TSR profile reported the lowest adaptive motivation and highest cost. The associations between profile membership and motivation were more varied for the Positive, Complicated, and Distant TSR profiles. Findings indicate that dichotomous perspectives (positive vs. negative) may be insufficient to describe the diversity of relationships within science classrooms. Results also suggest that concurrent attendance to all dimensions of TSRs is needed to improve relationships.

High school students' out‐of‐school science participation: A latent class analysis and unique associations with science aspirations and achievement

AbstractStudents' out‐of‐school science participation has been identified as a factor that supports adaptive science outcomes. Researchers have largely investigated students' out‐of‐school science participation in terms of structured science activities (e.g., attending a science camp), with far less consideration of how students' involvement in unstructured out‐of‐school science activities (e.g., using at‐home science kits) may also be associated with students' aspirations and achievement in science. Research in this area has established a conceptual framework by which activities can be categorized by the activity's level of interaction (i.e., whether receptive or active). Although this conceptual framework is useful to understand thetypesof unstructured activities in which students engage, this research has tended to overlook the fact that students often participate in more than one out‐of‐school unstructured activity. The present investigation addressed this dearth of research by examining the extent to which different typologies of student participation in out‐of‐school receptive and active unstructured activities existed. The study also examined if these profiles were uniquely associated with students' aspirations and achievement in science above and beyond the effects of their current level of in‐school participation. The study employed a latent class analysis ofN = 996 Australian high school students (40.60% girls) from six schools serving predominately above average socioeconomic status Australian high school students. Four distinct profiles of out‐of‐school participation in unstructured activities were found: Optimal, Receptive, Active, and Minimal Out‐of‐School Participation (OSP). The Optimal OSP and Receptive OSP profiles were associated with the higher aspirations (beyond students' in‐school participation), and both were significantly higher than the Active OSP and Minimal OSP profiles. Students' in‐school participation was most strongly associated with students' achievement. These findings suggest that encouraging students' participation in unstructured activities, especially receptive unstructured activities, and their in‐school participation may be viable avenues by which to improve students' science aspirations and achievement.

Pens down: An outbreak of the B.1.617.2 SARS-CoV-2 variant in an Australian high school, August 2021.

Little is known about the transmission dynamics of the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) among children and young adolescents. We investigated an outbreak in an Australian high school, with limited public health mitigation measures in place, to understand the school activities associated with transmission, and the role of young adolescents in spreading SARS-CoV-2. All 1,164 school attendees were monitored for SARS-CoV-2 infection through their mandated 14-day quarantine period. A cohort study design was used to investigate the effect of contact with the index case in different classes on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and the effect of vaccination among household contacts on becoming infected by SARS-CoV-2. There were 48 outbreak cases, including 14 students and one teacher who likely acquired their infection at the school. Attack rates among students in the index case's classes ranged from 0% to 45%. The greatest risk of infection for students in the same grade attending a class with the index case were from the drama class (risk ratio, RR: 111.6; 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 14.88-837.19) and the personal development, health, and physical education class (RR: 7.45: 95% CI: 2.27-24.44). The overall household attack rate was 57%, and household contacts who were not fully vaccinated were 2.9 times more likely (95% CI: 1.07-7.87) to become cases than were effectively-vaccinated household contacts. Children can play an important role in the transmission of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 within schools and at home. Transmission in this outbreak was largely associated with active, practical lessons that had close contact between students. This study demonstrates that the absence of public health and social measures in a low-incidence context resulted in the rapid spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) within an educational setting. These findings reinforce the role of public health and social measures and vaccinations to reduce airborne transmission and to enable a safe face-to-face learning environment.