A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
The ability to understand emotions contributes almost as much to students’ grades as their IQ. Past studies show two personal qualities are important for student academic success – intelligence and conscientiousness. IQ scores explain about 15% of the differences between students’ grades. Conscientiousness, such as having the diligence to do enough study, explains about 5%. [...]
A new study into emotional and behavioural problems in Australian schoolboys aged eight to nine years old has found new and concerning trends in both the incidence and the impact of these problems, but no definitive cause. The Murdoch Children's Research Institute's Childhood to Adolescents Transition Study (CATS) found that one in five boys in [...]
Education Minister James Merlino has announced a ban on mobile phone use in all Victorian public schools, effective from term one of 2020. The ban aims to counteract several effects of mobile phone use which schools have been struggling with. The most concerning is cyberbullying, which has been steadily increasing in Australian schools and in [...]
Do teenagers who frequent Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and other social media sites perform worse academically? Scientists from Germany have looked into these worries. "Concerns regarding the allegedly disastrous consequences of social networking sites on school performance are unfounded," says Professor Markus Appel, a psychologist who holds the Chair of Media Communication at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) [...]
Flickr Images For 15-year-old Zion Agostini, the start of each school day is a new occasion to navigate a minefield of racial profiling. From an early age, walking home from elementary school with his older brother, Agostini took note of the differential treatment police gave to black people in his community: “I [saw] [...]
Technology offers innovative tools that are shaping educational experiences for students, often in positive and dynamic ways. The research by Mueller and Oppenheimer serves as a reminder, however, that even when technology allows us to do more in less time, it does not always foster learning. Learning involves more than the receipt and the regurgitation [...]
Today, smartphones are central to college students' lives, keeping them constantly connected with friends, family and the Internet. Students' cell phones are rarely out of reach whether the setting is a college classroom, library, recreational center, cafeteria or dorm room. As cell phone use continues to increase, it is worth considering whether use of the [...]
I finally got around to reading Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner. It’s been since about 2005, and has been on my list of “to-reads” but it always seemed to get pushed to the side for another title. Anyway, for those who haven’t heard of it, the book is a collection of observations and [...]
Every few months, this old argument crops up again: Homework – Good or Bad? Last week the ABC reported on research that suggested that homework was of little use to students of primary school age when it came to improving academic outcomes. The research also suggested that homework was only had “very limited” and [...]
RESEARCH is needed to determine whether significant numbers of Australian students are trying to improve their academic performance by taking diverted prescription stimulants, according to academics from three Australian universities and a Canadian research institute. Dr Jayne Lucke, principal research fellow at the University of Queensland’s Centre for Clinical Research, said there were anecdotal reports [...]
