Gregory Liem and Andrew Martin outline a new approach to help students realise their academic potential.

What can be done to help students be more engaged in their learning and make consistent progress in their academic work? Latest research has shown that a student who is focused on pursuing his or her academic personal best by aiming to do as well or better than his or her previous best performance is likely to achieve better and be more engaged in their academic learning one year later. Our study, published in the international journal, Learning and Individual Differences, involved nearly 2000 Year 7 to 12 Australian students. At two time points over a period of one year, the students were...