Military deployment is considered a stressful period for families (Palmer, 2008), typically lasting three to nine months for Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel. To date, insufficient research has been conducted concerning children who experience deployment (Siebler, 2015). This study seeks to provide valuable insights into young children's understandings and experiences of their parents' military deployment in an Australian context. An adapted research framework, based on the policies from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 2015) and Clark and Moss (2011), has been created to listen to and privilege the often marginalised child's voice. Employing a qualitative research approach known as Mosaic research, multiple methods of data collection are combined to gather various insights into children's experiences. Embracing an interpretivist epistemology, the researcher aims to create shared knowledges of children's understandings and experiences, progressively building insights into the child's experience and inviting discussions to take place about their experiences. The study found that young children's experiences of parental deployment included stressors, responses, adaptations and protective factors. Another major finding was that children's understandings of parental deployment were often underestimated by parents. Children's understandings were strongly influenced by time, place, acculturation, narrative, digital technology, cognitive development, adult reinforcement and the use of age and culturally appropriate resources. The central goal of Mosaic research 'is not to make children's knowledge unquestionable, but to raise it to such a level that children's knowledge about their lives is central to adult discussions' (Clark & Moss, 2011, p. 65). Such knowledge about children's understandings and experiences of deployment can inform effective support strategies for parents, educators and professionals who work with these children in the ADF and wider community.

In Sri Lanka, a significant proportion of junior students fail to complete their education and withdraw early from secondary school. This is particularly true of students in low socio-economic districts. This inquiry sought to investigate principal and teacher perceptions of the school-related conditions and motivating practices that contribute to early adolescents' motivation and engagement in learning. The study used a qualitative research design. Participants were recruited using purposive sampling method, from ten government schools, representing type two schools, (Five from each Sinhala and Tamil medium), and located in Monaragala and Nuwara Eliya districts in Sri Lanka. Ten principals and ten teachers agreed to participate in semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data and the theoretical construct of Self-determination theory (SDT) was applied to interpreting the data. The results inform two main themes in relation to the school conditions that impact students’ motivation and engagement in learning: (1) impact of human conditions and (2) impact of physical conditions. Regarding the practices taken to increase motivation and engagement in learning, three themes were emergent: (1) parent awareness, (2) individual support and (3) short term initiatives. First, it can be concluded that numerous problems exist in relation to school conditions, and second that the practices of principals and teachers do not successfully addressed these problems, particularly in Tamil medium schools. It is suggested that, evidence-based intervention programmes be implemented in the most seriously affected schools to increase student motivation and engagement in learning, and slow attrition rates. It is imperative that future research extends to examine early adolescents' motivation and engagement across different subjects.

This study employed an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design to determine levels of motivation and engagement, and the school-related conditions that might influence such levels among Sri Lankan secondary school students. This study surveyed 100 Sinhala-medium and 100 Tamil-medium eighth-grade students (50 students from each gender). The mean age of the students was 12.8 years. Schools were represented by type 2 "government" schools located in the Monaragala and Nuwara Eliya districts in Sri Lanka. Twenty-four low-motivated students (12 from each gender) were selected based on the MQ scores of the MES-JS. Students who attained the lowest MQ scores for booster thoughts and booster behaviours, and highest MQ scores for mufflers and guzzlers were selected for conducting semi-structured interviews. The mean age of interviewed students was 12.9 years. Twelve teachers and 12 principals were also interviewed.
Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to measure the construct validity of the scale. Since this did not provide a robust solution, exploratory factor analysis was also conducted. Four factors were identified; Failure Avoidance and Anxiety (FAA), Positive Motivation (PM), Uncertain Control (UC), and Positive Engagement (PE). Based on those four factors, parametric tests – t-tests, two-way MANOVA, two-way ANOVA, one-way ANOVA –and non-parametric tests – Kruskal-Wallis H tests – were employed to analyse quantitative data and thematic analysis was applied to the qualitative data.
The findings of the quantitative phase of the study indicated that early adolescents' motivation and engagement was not a major problem across the study population but there was a group of students who exhibiting low motivation and engagement. Interviews were conducted with this group. This qualitative phase of the study indicated that the quality of classroom relationships and the curriculum and resources impacted on the least motivated and engaged students' learning. Especially, negative teacher-student relationships, lack of intrinsic motivation, the influence of peers, harsh punishments, inadequate encouragement, un-engaging teaching, unfriendly teaching-learning environment, inadequate quality learning activities, difficult subject matter, difficult and excessive homework, regular tests, inadequate classroom resources, and inadequate quality teaching-learning resources were revealed as contributing to low motivation and engagement. Some teachers and principals stated that they had employed: raising parental awareness, providing individual support, and short-term initiatives. It was revealed that, there was a link between the least motivated and engaged early adolescents' learning and the impact of school-related conditions in low socio-economic districts in Sri Lanka, particularly in Tamil-medium schools.
This study proposes a model to increase the motivation and engagement in learning of early adolescents in low socio-economic districts in Sri Lanka through a self-determination theory approach.