Identifying different conceptions of success and how these relate to wellbeing is an important area of research. These insights would be especially beneficial for young people who can be guided through school education to reflect on core values, life goals, and indices of success to promote aspirations that will be conducive to wellbeing. Through a systematic review of the empirical and grey literature, we identify and review 17 studies investigating secondary-school students’ (12–18 years) success conceptions and their association with various components of wellbeing. Results indicate that this area of research has received scant attention in the literature. Nevertheless, there is preliminary evidence to suggest that adolescents value intrinsic success such as self-actualisation, personal satisfaction, and connection and that particular patterns of success beliefs associated with personal development and goal striving relate positively to wellbeing. This is consistent with fulfilling the basic psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competency that are associated with internalised motivation and enhanced wellbeing. These insights can guide the content of education programmes focused on identifying life values and aspirations whilst concurrently fostering wellbeing. In addition, gender and developmental stage should be taken into consideration when developing success and wellbeing educational initiatives.

BACKGROUND: Current international consensus is that 'early' referral to palliative care services improves cancer patient and family carer outcomes. In practice, however, these referrals are not routine. An approach which directly addresses identified barriers to early integration of palliative care is required. This protocol details a trial of a standardized model of early palliative care (Care Plus) introduced at key defined, disease-specific times or transition points in the illness for people with cancer. Introduced as a 'whole of system' practice change for identified advanced cancers, the key outcomes of interest are population health service use change. The aims of the study are to examine the effect of Care Plus implementation on (1) acute hospitalisation days in the last 3 months of life; (2) timeliness of access to palliative care; (3) quality and (4) costs of end of life care; and (5) the acceptability of services for people with advanced cancer. METHODS: Multi-site stepped wedge implementation trial testing usual care (control) versus Care Plus (practice change). The design stipulates 'control' periods when usual care is observed, and the process of implementing Care Plus which includes phases of planning, engagement, practice change and evaluation. During the practice change phase, all patients with targeted advanced cancers reaching the transition point will, by default, receive Care Plus. Health service utilization and unit costs before and after implementation will be collated from hospital records, and state and national health service administrative datasets. Qualitative data from patients, consumers and clinicians before and after practice change will be gathered through interviews and focus groups. DISCUSSION: The study outcomes will detail the impact and acceptability of the standardized integration of palliative care as a practice change, including recommendations for ongoing sustainability and broader implementation. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN 12619001703190 . Registered 04 December 2019.

Introduction: Evidence supporting the use of music interventions to maximize arousal and awareness in adults presenting with a disorder of consciousness continues to grow. However, the brain of a child is not simply a small adult brain, and therefore adult theories are not directly translatable to the pediatric population. The present study aims to synthesize brain imaging data about the neural processing of music in children aged 0-18 years, to form a theoretical basis for music interventions with children presenting with a disorder of consciousness following acquired brain injury. Methods: We conducted a systematic review with narrative synthesis utilizing an adaptation of the methodology developed by Popay and colleagues. Following the development of the narrative that answered the central question "what does brain imaging data reveal about the receptive processing of music in children?", discussion was centered around the clinical implications of music therapy with children following acquired brain injury. Results: The narrative synthesis included 46 studies that utilized EEG, MEG, fMRI, and fNIRS scanning techniques in children aged 0-18 years. From birth, musical stimuli elicit distinct but immature electrical responses, with components of the auditory evoked response having longer latencies and variable amplitudes compared to their adult counterparts. Hemodynamic responses are observed throughout cortical and subcortical structures however cortical immaturity impacts musical processing and the localization of function in infants and young children. The processing of complex musical stimuli continues to mature into late adolescence. Conclusion: While the ability to process fundamental musical elements is present from birth, infants and children process music more slowly and utilize different cortical areas compared to adults. Brain injury in childhood occurs in a period of rapid development and the ability to process music following brain injury will likely depend on pre-morbid musical processing. Further, a significant brain injury may disrupt the developmental trajectory of complex music processing. However, complex music processing may emerge earlier than comparative language processing, and occur throughout a more global circuitry.

An unaccompanied cello recital featuring a diverse selection of works, including two exciting premieres by electroacoustic Australian composers Tilman Robinson and Stephen Stelios Adam.

Strategies to support the psychosocial well-being of older adults living in aged-care are needed; and evidence points toward music listening as an effective, non-pharmacological tool with many benefits to quality of life and well-being. Yet, the everyday listening practices (and their associated specific psychosocial benefits) of older adults living in residential aged-care remain under-researched. The current study explored older adults' experiences of music listening in their daily lives while living in residential aged-care and considered how music listening might support their well-being. Specifically, what might go into autonomous listening activities? 32 Australian residents (aged 73-98) living in two Australian care facilities participated in semi-structured interviews. The results of a qualitative thematic analysis revealed three themes pertaining to "previous music experiences and interest," "current music listening," and "barriers to listening." While an interest in and access to music did not necessarily result in everyday listening practices, of those participants who did listen to music, perceived benefits included outcomes such as entertainment, enjoyment, relaxation, and mood regulation. Drawing on Ruud's notion of music as a "cultural immunogen" supporting well-being and Self-Determination Theory, theoretical implications of the findings are addressed, relating to how to create and support music activities in aged-care facilities so that they are engaging, meaningful, and promote emotional regulation, community, and well-being.

In this article, we systematically reviewed the research literature dealing with expectancy-value motivation theory within music contexts. Employing the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) approach, a total of 1,120 records were retrieved and examined, with 110 eventually included in the analyses. Frequencies/percentages were generated for research output in 5-year time periods, type of publication, sampling locations, and methodologies. Summaries of all 110 records were provided; content analyses on topics covered were also conducted. Findings indicated a clear increase in research interest over the past 15 years with quantitative methodologies being twice as prevalent as qualitative approaches. While the vast majority (97.7%) of quantitative research employed self-report questionnaires, the most common form of qualitative data collection was interviews (59.1%). Salient topics covered included students’ expectancy-value beliefs across music and other school subjects, continued music participation, intentions to pursue a career in music, and parental influences.

Quality interventions addressing the important issue of teacher stress and burnout have shown promising outcomes for participating teachers in terms of decreased distress, improved well-being and increased commitment to their jobs. Less is known however about whether such interventions also benefit students. The present study investigated the downstream effects for a completer sample of 226 primary and high school students after their teachers (n = 17) completed one of two 8-week stress reduction interventions. The relationships between change in teacher self-reported distress and burnout after completing the interventions, and change in students' self-reported well-being, academic self-perceptions, and perceptions of classroom environment were explored. A secondary aim of this study was to assess whether changes in teachers' cognitive flexibility mediated the relationship between teacher and student self-report outcomes. Results of correlational and multi-level mediation analyses showed that changes to teachers' self-reported distress and burnout affected multiple facets of students' well-being and the academic environment. Specifically, reductions in teachers' self-reported distress and burnout were related to students' improved perceptions of their teachers' support in the classroom. Reductions in teachers' personal and work-related burnout correlated with greater increases of academic self-perception in students. Contrary to predictions, cognitive flexibility in teachers did not mediate the relationship between these student and teacher measures. These findings indicate important downstream benefits for students and highlight the broader value of stress-reduction and well-being programs for teachers.

The Chinese setting of Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler’s teaching piece Die Maßnahme (The Measures Taken, 1930) has vexed the work’s reception since its premiere. Most modern scholars dismiss the setting as inconsequential and the work as an allegory that could just as well be set anywhere. Critics of the premiere, however, interpreted the work as concretely set in China, but struggled to reconcile the plot with Communist doctrine. This chapter clarifies this contradictory situation and argues that the work’s Chinese setting is both concrete and an allegory for Germany, by demonstrating how Die Maßnahme follows the Comintern’s strategy in China, as opposed to its strategy in Germany, to teach a lesson not about any specific strategy, but about obedience to orders. Additionally, Eisler’s music is used to explain another puzzling aspect of how to interpret the work’s Chinese setting: The lack of obvious references to Chinese traditional culture in either the text, or dramaturgy, or music. Following Communism’s internationalist ambitions, Eisler imagined his music as a new international proletarian music that was meant to be as representative of Chinese Communism as it was of German Communism. Rather than disavowing the Chinese setting, Eisler’s music demonstrates the neocolonial bias in Soviet and European Communist approaches to the colonial world.

The situational context within which an activity takes place, as well as the personality characteristics of individuals shape the types of strategies people choose in order to regulate their emotions, especially when confronted with challenging or undesirable situations. Taking self-regulation as the framework to study emotions in relation to learning and performing chamber music canon repertoire, this quasi-experimental and intra-individual study focused on the self-rated emotional states of a professional classical cellist during long-term sustained practice across 100-weeks. This helped to develop greater awareness of different emotions and how they vary over artistic events (9 profiled concerts and 1 commercially recorded album). Data analysis included traditional psychometric measurements to test the internal consistency of the time series data as well as the relationship between variables (artistic events). The study mapped the cellist's flexible regulation of 17 different positive and negative emotions empirically linked to learning and achievement while practicing within the social context of performing music publicly at a high level. Findings arising from the study help with understandings of how to support musicians to maximize their artistic potential by reducing emotion dysregulation and strengthening the types of adaptive methods that enable them to manage their own emotions.

In this study, the robustness of an online tool for objectively assessing singing ability was examined by: (1) determining the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the tool; (2) comparing the task performance of web-based participants (n = 285) with a group (n = 52) completing the tool in a controlled laboratory setting, and then determining the convergent validity between settings, and (3) comparing participants’ task performance with previous research using similar singing tasks and populations. Results indicated that the online singing tool exhibited high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = .92), and moderate-to-high test-retest reliabilities (.65–.80) across an average 4.5-year-span. Task performance for web- and laboratory-based participants (n = 82) matched on age, sex, and music training were not significantly different. Moderate-to-large correlations (|r| =.31–.59) were found between self-rated singing ability and the various singing tasks, supporting convergent validity. Finally, task performance of the web-based sample was not significantly different to previously reported findings. Overall the findings support the robustness of the online tool for objectively measuring singing pitch accuracy beyond a controlled laboratory environment and its potential application in large-scale investigations of singing and music ability.

Creativity studies have traditionally tended to focus on the evaluation of products generated by creative people, which are categorized in various ways according to their reception and impact on society. This orientation has been advanced in various ways by including factors such as process, personality, and cultural pressures. While these approaches have produced many important insights, the types of creativity involved in music performance involve additional aspects. Musical performance necessarily entails developing forms of bodily skill that play out in real-time interactive contexts. These contexts involve other people, musical instruments and technologies, acoustic spaces, and various socio-cultural factors. Accordingly, some scholars have recently posited relational, environmentally distributed, and cooperative models that better capture the complex nature of musical creativity in action. In this chapter, we review some key approaches to creative cognition, with a special focus on understanding creativity as it unfolds in the real-time dynamics of musical performance. In doing so, we introduce a number of concepts associated with recent work in cognitive science that may help to capture the adaptive interplay of body and environment in the co-enactment of musical events.