Yes, it is 2014, and welcome to a new issue of the journal for the year. The journal will soon be available to you online when the APACs new website is up and running. All back issues from volume 1, number 1 in 1987 will also be available. After this time you will be able to choose to use both the online version and the printed one, or decline the printed version. More on this in the APAC newsletter later in the year.

This issue contains a range of interesting articles on topics that are highly relevant for the work of psychologists, guidance and counselling professionals. Many of the articles address aspects of social-emotional functioning and behaviour, several are related to social networking and online communication, and one focuses on career guidance. The various authors have highlighted the implications of their research for professional practice, especially with respect to prevention and intervention. Spanning children, adolescents and young adults, and covering topics as diverse as ADHD, giftedness, bereavement, career planning, bullying, virtual connectedness, and online counselling, this is an issue with something for everyone. Those of you who will be enjoying summer vacations over the next few months will undoubtedly find some stimulating articles to intersperse with your usual holiday reading.

The current study used developmental trajectories to examine the relationship between internalising and externalising behaviours and victimisation over the transition period from primary to secondary school. Data were collected using a self-completion questionnaire four times over 3 years from 3,459 students aged 11–14 years. Students were tracked longitudinally to assess their knowledge, attitudes, mental health and bullying experiences during the transition period. Multilevel modelling was used to examine the relationship between developmental victimisation trajectories and behavioural and emotional difficulties over time of students’ transitioning from primary to secondary school. Males who experienced low, but increasing, levels of victimisation over secondary school had greater emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity, peer problems and lower pro-social behaviour than those who had not been victimised. Whereas females who experienced low, but increasing, levels of victimisation over secondary school had greater emotional symptoms and peer problems than those who had not been victimised. The current results highlight the need to prevent the continuation or escalation of chronic victimisation from primary to secondary school and to improve the emotional wellbeing of adolescents. It is recommended that whole-school bullying prevention and intervention programs and social wellbeing programs are implemented during primary school and the transition to secondary school.

Studies have found that moral disengagement plays a significant role in the continuation of bullying situations (Bonanno, 2005); however, the moral stance of cyber-bystanders — those who witness online bullying — is not yet clear. While research into traditional face-to-face bullying reported that peers would probably or certainly intervene to support victims in 43% of cases (Rigby & Johnson, 2006) actual intervention is reportedly much less (Atlas & Pepler, 1998; Craig & Pepler, 1997). Little is known, however, about the attitudes and behaviours of bystanders or witnesses when online, or their probable intentions to intervene. This study employed three digital animations of typical cyberbullying scenarios to explore young people's views of cyber-bystanders. Youth from Years 8–12 (mean age 15.06, N = 961) from one metropolitan secondary school in Adelaide, South Australia, completed an online survey after watching vignettes. To shed light on the rationale and thinking behind their understanding of bystanders and moral dis/engagement when online, this article reports on the qualitative responses from young people in relation to one of these animations/vignettes. The findings suggest that young people perceive cyber-bystanders to have the capacity to morally engage in cyberbullying incidents; however, there are various barriers to their active positive engagement. The implications can inform educators and school counsellors about possible ways to support students to intervene when they witness cyberbullying.

Aggressive behaviour in school-aged children presents a significant challenge for society. If not managed, it can result in adverse academic, social, emotional, and behavioural outcomes for the child. In addition, it can create stress for families and become a significant burden for the community as these children reach adolescence and adulthood, and engage in antisocial behaviours. Using a three-step exploratory analytical strategy, this study explored parent and child reports of a diverse range of underlying developmental and clinical variables that have been identified in the literature as predictors of aggressive child behaviour, and which could be addressed within an Australian school or community context. A total of 57 children and their parents were recruited from a referral-based Western Australian child mental health service, and the wider community. A group of 31 clinically aggressive children were identified and compared to a group of 26 non-aggressive children. The aggressive group was reported as having a greater prevalence of internalising symptoms, including anxiety and depression, and their aggressive behaviour was more likely to be of the callous/unemotional type, relative to their non-aggressive counterparts. Significant predictors of belonging to the aggressive group included child social problems, thought problems, attention problems, affective problems, narcissism, symptoms of ADHD and PTS, and low maternal self-esteem. Findings are presented and discussed in the context of established theories. Recommendations for principles of treatment for aggressive children and their families are suggested.

The literature indicates increasing evidence showing the benefits of classroom-based, universal preventive interventions for mental health and the link between social and emotional learning and academic performance. The FRIENDS program has been extensively tested and has showed promising results not only for preventing childhood anxiety, but also for improving students’ self-concept, social skills and coping skills. However, when it comes to communities in disadvantage, the results are mixed, with some studies reporting the need to include enhancements to the context in which the program is implemented to better support communities at risk. A combined intervention aiming to promote students’ social-emotional skills was piloted in a school located in a low socio-economic status area. Teachers received training to teach social and emotional skills for students and a resilience program for themselves. Students’ social-emotional outcomes were assessed at pre, post, 3 and 6 months following the intervention. Results showed that the intervention helped students to decrease their anxiety, and the intervention was well accepted by participants.

Technology and social networking tools and sites are changing the way young people build and maintain their social connections with others (Boyd & Ellison, 2008). This study utilised a new measure, The Self in a Social Context, Virtual Connectedness subscale (SSC-VC subscale), to examine the effects of social networking tools and sites on social and emotional wellbeing among 1,037 Australian young people aged 11–18 years. A maximum likelihood factor analysis identified three strong factors: Fit In (α = .81), Public Self (α = .79) and Connected Self (α = .83). Significant main effects were revealed for the number of times students checked their Facebook F(12, 2415) = 13.8, p < .001, and for gender, F(3, 913) = 10.8, p < .001, but no interaction effect was found. Univariate tests also revealed a significant difference for Frequency of checking Facebook, F(4, 915), = 4.98, and for Gender, F(1, 915), = 46.92, p < .001 on the dependent variable of Emotional Difficulties. These findings suggest that social networking sites, though used differently by males and females, provide an important forum for building social connections across groups.

School professionals, particularly school counsellors and school psychologists, require detailed knowledge of many important factors that contribute to the personal, academic, and vocational development of the students in their charge (e.g., psychosocial development, curricula developments, local community developments and initiatives, national and international policy developments). The amount of detail and knowledge required by school counsellors/psychologists is bewildering, even before consideration of the individual differences in those who require their help. A framework can provide school professionals with a parsimonious approach to organising, synthesising and understanding all the information that needs to be considered in relation to a child within a particular environment. The current article reviews and comments upon the usefulness of two such theoretical frameworks — Bronfenbrenner's ecological model (1979, 1989) and Spiel, Reimann, Wagner, and Schober's (2008) Bildung-Psychology approach — to an exploration and understanding of a common issue; namely, bully/victim problems among school pupils. It is argued that such ecological/systemic approaches could usefully inform the design and evaluation of future efforts to address school bullying and violence. By extension, we propose that the simplicity of such models is of great value to the school professional who seeks a framework that can guide them in their work.

The purpose of this exploratory-descriptive study was to determine the career development of upper primary school students in Turkey. The Revised Career Awareness Survey (RCAS) was completed by 644 Turkish upper primary school students. Results indicated that the students were able to associate their own personal characteristics with particular careers and knew the characteristics of careers. They were less knowledgeable about life/career implications and life/career management tasks. The implications of the findings for career guidance and counselling practice are considered.

Online counselling is a rapidly growing field and, while there is emerging evidence of its comparative effectiveness, there has been little research into what techniques are being applied in practice and which clients will most likely benefit from this medium. Using a focus group methodology, this study examines the experiences of 19 online clinicians employed by a youth mental health service, investigating their perception of online clients, views on their counsellor roles, the approaches and techniques they employ, and the unique aspects of counselling in an online environment. Overall, online clinicians perceived their clients as presenting with highly complex problems and a high level of psychological distress. They noted online clients would most often use the service once or twice, and that some would use online chat as an adjunct to face-to-face counselling. The online clinicians described various roles, including: assessments, gatekeeping, providing emotional support, and therapeutic interventions. According to the online clinicians, they used a variety of techniques online, but favoured person-centred techniques, as these helped keep the clients engaged with the service. Areas of further research and implications for practice are discussed.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the predictive value of gender, attachment dimensions and family environment in explaining loneliness among students. The study included 473 students (281 females, 192 males) from Ankara University. The UCLA Loneliness Scale, Family Environment Assessment Scale and Experiences in Close Relationships — Revised Questionnaire were administered to all participants. The results of the regression analyses demonstrated that the avoidance dimension of attachment accounted for 11%, avoidance and anxiety 14%, all attachment dimensions and family environment 18%, and all variables together (attachment dimensions, family environment, gender) accounted for 19% of variance in loneliness. The present study demonstrated that insecurely attached males with low-coherent families reported the highest degree of loneliness. On the contrary, securely attached females with high-coherent families reported the lowest degree of loneliness.

Prior research has shown that teacher-child relationship quality predicts school emotional wellbeing and academic engagement, but it is unclear whether the relationship quality reflects teachers’ perceptions of children's social-emotional behaviours differently for girls and for boys. The purpose of this study was to examine whether teachers’ reports of relationship quality were differentially associated with children's behaviours depending on child gender. Teachers provided behavioural reports and ratings of closeness and conflict for children from kindergarten (n = 598), pre-primary (n = 496), and year 1 (n = 451). Of 19 significant associations, only 5 were moderated by gender, including hyperactivity and emotional problems. The findings suggest that, primarily, gender does not moderate how teachers’ perceptions of behaviours correlate with their ratings of relationship quality, but that gender role expectations may affect teacher-child relationship quality in some behavioural domains. Suggestions for counsellors working with teachers are presented that target teacher self-reflection on gender expectations, behavioural expectations and their intersection, to improve teacher-child relationship quality.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a brief interest inventory intervention on career decision self-efficacy in an undergraduate sample. A pretest-posttest equivalent group design compared students who completed an interest inventory and participated in two sessions of its interpretation, students who only completed an interest inventory, and students who received no career intervention. Participants completed the Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale — Short Form before and at the end of the intervention. The results indicated that both experimental groups had significant gains on career decision self-efficacy, whereas no significant gains were observed for the control group. Although both treatment conditions were effective, the feedback group appeared to be more powerful in increasing career decision self-efficacy. By participating in a feedback group and completing the activities in their interest profiles, a client had the opportunity to be actively involved in his/her own career process instead of passively completing an inventory and receiving no feedback. As well, clients had the opportunity to check the interpretations of their profile and share their results with other clients having similar career difficulties.

Distance education students are confronted with a range of additional challenges as part of their tertiary study experience. A quantitative approach was used to identify the challenges they face, their relative levels of satisfaction, coping strategies, and academic performance. Two hundred and ninety-five students (64 male and 231 female) participated by completing a survey that included measures of satisfaction, stress, coping, and academic performance. All were enrolled in an Australian university and studied either on campus or in one of two distance education (DE) modes, off-campus and offshore. While there were some differences in satisfaction expressed between DE and on-campus students, there were no significant differences between the groups on measures of stress or academic performance. The differences between the three groups’ use of coping strategies was less clear. Possible explanations for the differences between the groups are discussed.

Adaptability has been recently proposed as cognitive, behavioural, and emotional regulation assisting individuals to effectively respond to change, uncertainty and novelty. Given students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have known impairments with regulatory functions, they may be at particular disadvantage as they seek to navigate change, uncertainty, and novelty in their academic lives. This discussion summarises current research of adaptability as relevant to students with ADHD, presents preliminary exploration of data that suggests evidence for the difficulties students with ADHD face with regards to adaptability (particularly in regards to cognitive and behavioural regulation), and concludes with suggestions for counselling, psychological, and educational practices aimed at enhancing the adaptability of students with ADHD.

Students making the transition from high school to university often encounter many stressors and new experiences. Many students adjust successfully to university; however, some students do not, often resulting in attrition from the university and mental health issues. The primary aim of the current study was to examine the effects that optimism, self-efficacy, depression, and anxiety have on an individual's life stress and adaptation to university. Eighty-four first-year, full-time students from the Queensland University of Technology (60 female, 24 male) who had entered university straight from high school completed the study. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing their levels of optimism, self-efficacy, depression, anxiety, perceived level of life stress and adaptation to university. In line with predictions, results showed that optimism, depression, and anxiety each had a significant relationship with students’ perceived level of stress. Furthermore, self-efficacy and depression had a significant relationship with adaptation to university. We conclude that students with high levels of optimism and low levels of depression and anxiety will adapt better when making the transition from high school to university. In addition, students with high levels of self-efficacy and low levels of depression will experience less life stress in their commencement year of university. The implications of this study are outlined.

The two articles in the Applied Practices section of the current journal provide interesting views of the role of school psychologists and school counsellors in interventions directly facilitating children's development, progress and skills within schools.

Gifted students are a diverse minority group with high intelligence and talent whose needs are often unrecognised and unmet. It is believed that this group of students, from a range of backgrounds, socio-economic statuses and abilities, may experience a range of social-emotional difficulties, including peer exclusion, isolation, stress, anxiety, depression and destructive perfectionism. Literature also reveals that gifted and talented students are underachieving at school. Many educators do not recognise or meet the needs of gifted students as there is a false perception that they can look after themselves (Neihard, Reis, Robinson, & Moon, 2002). As research indicates, there is a positive correlation between poor social-emotional development and scholastic underachievement in gifted students (Australian Council for Educational Research, 2010; Queensland Government, 2013). While this may be true, there is limited understanding of how these variables influence one another. Many researchers believe that social-emotional difficulties cause school underachievement, whereas others argue that school underachievement results in social and emotional problems. Furthermore, many researchers dispute these arguments altogether, and believe that these problems are a result of external factors, including family, school, and community environments. Given these contrasting viewpoints, critical investigation is necessary in order to develop a more conclusive understanding of this relationship. This article aims to critically analyse the scope of the current literature, and provides recommendations for further research, as this may result in better development of programs to further support the social-emotional and academic needs of gifted students.

How adolescents use the social networking site Facebook to express grief is a growing area of research. In reviewing current literature, it is evident that many questions still remain unanswered. Additionally, this ever-evolving platform for grief, mourning and bereavement may hold many implications for educators, policy developers and school counsellors and how they manage and support adolescents dealing with the sudden death of a peer. This article explores the reasons why Facebook memorials may appeal to a grieving adolescent, conventions in online grief, and challenges for schools in the context of policies for social networking.

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.