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Adaptability is defined as appropriate cognitive, behavioral, and/or affective adjustment in the face of uncertainty and novelty. Building on prior measurement work demonstrating the psychometric properties of an adaptability construct, the present study investigates dispositional predictors (personality, implicit theories) of adaptability, and the role of adaptability in predicting academic (motivation, engagement, disengagement) and non-academic (self-esteem, life satisfaction, sense of meaning and purpose, emotional instability) outcomes. This longitudinal study (2 time points, 1 year apart), involving 969 adolescents from 9 high schools, found that personality (conscientiousness and agreeablenesspositively; neuroticism-negatively) and implicit theories (effort-related beliefs about intelligencepositively) significantly predicted adaptability (beyond the effects of socio-demographics and prior achievement). Further, adaptability significantly predicted academic (class participation, school enjoyment, and positive academic intentions-positively; self-handicapping and disengagement-negatively) and non-academic (self-esteem, life satisfaction, and sense of meaning and purpose-positively) outcomes beyond the effects of socio-demographic factors, prior achievement, personality, implicit theories, and 2 cognate correlates (buoyancy and self-regulation). These findings hold implications for researchers and practitioners seeking to understand and address young people's responses to their changing academic and non-academic worlds.

Adaptability is proposed as individuals' capacity to constructively regulate psycho-behavioral functions in response to new, changing, and/or uncertain circumstances, conditions and situations. The present investigation explored the internal and external validity of an hypothesised adaptability scale. The sample comprised 2,731 high school students. In terms of internal validity, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA and CFA) suggested a reliable higher order adaptability factor subsumed by a reliable first order cognitivebehavioural factor and a reliable first order affective factor. Multi-group CFA indicated invariance in factor structure as a function of gender, age, and language background. Further, age (younger adolescents), language background (nonEnglish speaking), and parents' education (higher levels) predicted higher order adaptability, while gender (males) predicted first order affective adaptability. In terms of external validity, consistent with hypotheses, higher and first order adaptability was differentially associated with cognate/aligned factors (personality, implicit theories of ability, buoyancy) and also with psycho-educational wellbeing 'outcome' factors (achievement, enjoyment of school, meaning and purpose, life satisfaction). Findings hold theoretical and empirical implications for researchers and practitioners seeking to better understand the constructive regulation of individuals confronted with situations involving novelty, change, and uncertainty.

The study tested three theoretically/conceptually hypothesized longitudinal models of academic processes leading to academic performance. Based on a longitudinal sample of 1866 high‐school students across two consecutive years of high school (Time 1 and Time 2), the model with the most superior heuristic value demonstrated: (a) academic motivation and self‐concept positively predicted attitudes toward school; (b) attitudes toward school positively predicted class participation and homework completion and negatively predicted absenteeism; and (c) class participation and homework completion positively predicted test performance whilst absenteeism negatively predicted test performance. Taken together, these findings provide support for the relevance of the self‐system model and, particularly, the importance of examining the dynamic relationships amongst engagement factors of the model. The study highlights implications for educational and psychological theory, measurement, and intervention.

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The most popular measures of multidimensional constructs typically fail to 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 from their discriminant validity. Part of the problem, the authors argue, is undue reliance on overly restrictive independent cluster models of confirmatory factor analysis (ICM-CFA) in which each item loads on one, and only one, factor. Here the authors demonstrate exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM), an integration of the best aspects of CFA and traditional exploratory factor analyses (EFA). On the basis of responses to the 11-factor Motivation and Engagement Scale ( n = 7,420, Mage = 14.22), we demonstrate that ESEM fits the data much better and results in substantially more differentiated (less correlated) factors than corresponding CFA models. Guided by a 13-model taxonomy of ESEM full-measurement (mean structure) invariance, the authors then demonstrate invariance of factor loadings, item intercepts, item uniquenesses, and factor variancescovariances, across gender and over time. ESEM has broad applicability to other areas of research that cannot be appropriately addressed with either traditional EFA or CFA and should become a standard tool for use in psychometric tests of psychological assessment instruments.

Boarding school has been a feature of education systems for centuries. Minimal large-scale quantitative data have been collected to examine its association with important educational and other outcomes. The present study represents one of the largest studies into boarding school conducted to date. It investigates boarding school and students’ motivation, engagement, and psychological well-being (e.g., life satisfaction, interpersonal relationships)—controlling for sociodemographic, achievement, personality, and school covariates. The main sample comprised 5,276 high school students (28% boarding students; 72% day students) from 12 high schools in Australia. A subsample of 2,002 students (30% boarding students; 70% day students) had pretest data, enabling analyses of gains or declines in outcomes across the school year. Results indicated predominant parity between boarding and day students on most outcome factors, some modest positive results favoring boarding students, and no notable differences in gains or declines on outcomes between boarders and day students over the course of one academic year. Implications for researchers, the boarding sector, parents, and students are discussed.

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