Mainland immigrant and Hong Kong local students’ psychological sense of school membership

A Chinese version of the Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale was developed to find out the subjective PSSM of Mainland immigrant and local Hong Kong students. Five schools participated with 295 boys and 252 girls from Primary years 4, 5, and 6 taking part. Among those, 264 students were local Hong Kong students, while 283 were Mainland immigrant students who claimed that they had lived in Hong Kong for 7 years or less. The Chinese version of the PSSM scale was found to be reliable, and interestingly, Mainland immigrant students were found to have a significantly higher sense of school belonging, but had a lower feeling of rejection than Hong Kong students did. Results would be useful to understand how students feel towards support in school.     

Developmental patterns of school students' motivational‐ and cognitive‐metacognitive competencies

This study examined the metacognitive developmental patterns of Hong Kong school students. Students rated their own metacognitive competencies by responding to an inventory of six motivational‐ and cognitive‐metacognitive subscales. Results showed that students' metacognitive competencies decreased with age—from primary 4 (age 9) to secondary 5 (age 17)—with a sharp decline noticeable at the primary/secondary school transition. Age had a more powerful effect than gender on students' perception of their metacognitive competencies. This decreasing pattern of Hong Kong students' metacognitive competencies is contrary to the developmental trends found in Western countries. However, the comparatively high academic performance of Hong Kong students also suggests some different recommendations about student learning.     

Perceptions of Social Justice Among the South Asian and Mainstream Chinese Youth from Diverse Cultural Backgrounds in Hong Kong

This study examined the attitudes of young people from different cultural backgrounds in Hong Kong toward social justice, in particular those regarding gender, racial/ethnic equalities, and immigrant rights. Among the sample of 15,428 adolescents, aged 12 to 19, 7.1% were South Asians, 15.5% were immigrants from mainland China, 4.1% were cross-boundary students, 73% were Hong Kong mainstream Chinese, and 0.3% did not indicate. Their civic attitudes were assessed by the adapted International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS) (2009) questionnaire instrument. Latent means analysis (LMA) was conducted and the findings concluded that, compared with Hong Kong mainstream students (HKMS), South Asian (SA) students reported a statistically significant lower score on gender equality and significantly higher score on racial/ethnic equality and immigrants' rights. In contrast, both Cross-Boundary students (CBS) and Chinese Immigrant students (CIS) rated significantly higher on items relating to racial/ethnic equality and immigrants' rights, as compared with their HKMS counterparts. Regression analyses were also utilized to investigate how demographic variables predicted the latent variables. Specifically, regression analyses of different student groups on social justice issues were discussed to compare how demographic variables contributed to the subjective perceptions of these rights and responsibilities. Policy implications were drawn with reference to the data and recommendations for improvement were discussed.     

Cross-cultural experiences of immigrant students from Mainland China in Hong Kong secondary schools

Many schools in Hong Kong are concerned with the growing number of enrolments of students from Mainland China. This article examines the immigrant students’ constructs of their cross-cultural identities. It reveals how these students experience a journey of transformation in language, culture and identity. Qualitative data were collected from unstructured interviews with 12 immigrant students from Mainland China from six secondary schools. Two cases which are representative of the sample are reported. The study showed the transformation of the cross-cultural identities of these students, in the process of which they adopted the new culture into their lives and made it their reality while they still strongly connected part of their identity to their Mainland Chinese background. Despite some negative experiences of adaptation, they adopted a meritocratic approach to making sense of their cross-cultural experience. It was used as a form of agency to overcome, or at least ameliorate, feelings of discrimination, loss of cultural support and being immigrants in the ‘new’ society of Hong Kong. Lastly, two implications for the promotion of education for immigrant students will be discussed at school and legal levels.     

ISSUES IN COUNSELING IMMIGRANT COLLEGE STUDENTS

The immigrant population of urban community colleges has grown in recent years, creating new challenges for college counselors. Counseling intervention is essential to enable immigrant students to cope with the stresses of immigration and the effects of those stresses on their college performance. Acculturation is a process that changes with time and that affects students of different ages differently. Cultural variations among immigrants affect social and academic performance in college as well. Developing English language fluency both accompanies and is accompanied by other adjustment issues. College counselors can facilitate both student' adjustment and the college's recognition of immigrant students' cultural perspective.     

Hong Kong tertiary students' conceptions of assessment of academic ability

Students' beliefs, attitudes, experiences and responses towards assessment reflect the ecology of their specific context. The study examines Hong Kong tertiary students' conceptions of assessment using focus group interviews and the content analysis technique. Using six focus groups, 26 Hong Kong university students were interviewed. Hong Kong tertiary students associated assessment with lifelong high-stake examinations. The assessment determined an individual's personal value or worth and achievement was an obligation one had towards one's family. As a legitimate tool for selecting the best candidates for educational and career opportunities, assessment provided upward social mobility, but also served the function of monitoring and surveillance to shape people's behaviour according to societal expectations. Resilience was reflected in both self-regulative agentic responses of effort, persistence and gaming strategy and passive escaping from the oppressive assessment system. The general emotional reaction towards assessment was negative; and participants cast doubts on the assessment validity, accuracy and the limited utility confined by academic-only content. In addition to the portrayal of the Chinese student as an effective, persistent learner, this study shows that Chinese students are very aware of the negative, controlling impact of assessment on their lives.     

Assessing the quality and equality of Hong Kong basic education results from PISA 2000+ to PISA 2006

This paper seeks to examine the quality and equality of basic education of Hong Kong based on the first three cycles of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Results from these three assessments suggested that the Hong Kong students have an outstanding performance in mathematics, science and reading. In particular, the performance of reading improves substantially in PISA 2006. As far as equality in education is concerned, the achievement gap of students from different socio-economic backgrounds in Hong Kong is relatively small compared with other countries. However, the academic performance variation between-schools suggest that, there is still academic segregation among secondary schools in Hong Kong although it has been reduced slightly in the PISA 2006.     

Are health professional competency assessments transferable across cultures? A preliminary validity study

This study investigated if professional competency assessments are transferable across cultures using COMPASS®: Competency assessment in speech pathology, a tool developed and validated in Australia. Students in Hong Kong were assessed by clinical educators using COMPASS® and the usual clinical evaluation forms. Analyses compared Hong Kong data with the original Australian field trial data. Rasch analysis was used to evaluate how well the ratings and score generated represented students’ development of competency. Hong Kong clinical educators’ ratings represented the same seven distinct categories of judgement as Australian clinical educators. The order of item difficulty was very similar for the two samples. However, Hong Kong clinical educators were not rating students in a pattern that reflected increasing competency with experience and very few year 4 students were rated at entry level. It is concluded that an assessment tool validated and developed in one culture may well support valid judgements and yield measures that can be used to judge student competency in another culture. Further evaluation is required to investigate the differences in the judgement of student progress in another culture and strengthen the validity of using its measures to judge students' competency performance.     

Teacher efficacy: A comparative study of Hong Kong and Shanghai Primary in-service teachers

Teachers beliefs about their ability to affect students’ performance is an important part of professionalism. This study compared 725 Hong Kong and 575 Shanghai primary in-service teachers on their teacher efficacy. Two Chinese versions of the 12-item Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale were used in this study since some wordings of the Hong Kong version of the Scale (HK-TSE) were different from the Shanghai version (STSE) as a result of cultural differences. Basically, the Shanghai teachers reported significantly higher efficacy than did the Hong Kong teachers. After reviewing these quantitative results, 86 follow-up questionnaires from Shanghai in-service teachers who also participated in the first part of this study were collected. Results of this qualitative part showed that the three most commonly cited factors for the contribution of teacher efficacy were: respect and confidence placed in them by students and parents, the training they received from universities and the experience they gained from daily teaching practice. Though Hong Kong in-service teachers had lower efficacy scores than the Shanghai counterparts.     

Examining Hong Kong students’ achievement goals and their relations with students’ perceived classroom environment and strategy use

This study examined Hong Kong students’ achievement goals and their relations with students’ perceived classroom environment and strategy use based on the multiple goal perspective of goal orientation theory. A total of 925 Grade 8 students from six secondary schools in Hong Kong voluntarily responded to a questionnaire that measured these three sets of variables. Consistent with previous studies using goal orientation theory, the findings of this study indicated that students’ perceived classroom environment was significantly related to their personal achievement goals and strategy use. While mastery goals were found to be the strongest predictor of strategy use, performance‐approach goals and perceived instrumentality also had positive relations with mastery goals and strategy use. Our findings suggest that mastery goals and performance goals were not contrasting goals as conceptualised in normative goal orientation theory. Students with high motivation for both types of goal were more adaptive in learning than were students who pursued a single type of goal. Moreover, the value of adding perceived instrumentality when studying students’ motivation should be emphasised. The implications of these findings for understanding Hong Kong students’ motivation, and for planning effective teaching instruction to enhance their motivation, are discussed.     

Students’ concepts and attitudes toward citizenship: the case of Hong Kong

This paper analyses the data obtained from the findings on Hong Kong, as a part of the IEA second civic study. Because the survey was conducted two years after Hong Kong's return to China, the findings reflect concepts and attitudes toward citizenship among Hong Kong students shortly after the change of sovereignty. The study shows that Hong Kong ranks highest in two aspects of citizenship: civic knowledge and attitudes toward immigrants. Hong Kong ranks lowest in attitudes toward the nation, support for women's political rights, confidence in participating at school, and open classroom climate. Moreover, Hong Kong students are most concerned about elections and freedom of expression, but are least interested in political parties. They are more interested in social-related citizenship issues, and try to avoid confrontational and activist politics. This suggests that Hong Kong students are concerned with citizenship issues and politics; are very knowledgeable, and while they are also concerned about society, do not favor confrontations. This partly reflects a Chinese culture and partly reflects that depolicitization perpetuates beyond 1997.     

English in Hong Kong: a preliminary study of the ACERWord Knowledge Test – Form F and the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices as indicators of verbal reasoning ability and abstract reasoning ability among Hong Kong university students

The standard of English of Hong Kong students is a matter of considerable debate. Academics, business people and others bemoan the deterioration of English-speaking skills and the declining quality of students. Explanations for this situation include the introduction of mass education, the lack of trained English teachers and an exam-centred curriculum. Yet, little research has been undertaken concerning student intellectual ability and English skills. This short report examines the English skills of 146 undergraduates using the ACER Word Knowledge Test - Form F , and their abstract reasoning ability using Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. The results show that Hong Kong students, while low in English skills are superior in intelligence. Although exploratory and subject to qualification, the research has implications for the teaching and continued use of English in Hong Kong schools and universities.     

Social engagement in a diversifying campus: a phenomenological exploration

With more non-local (Mainland China and overseas) students admitted into the universities of Hong Kong, the student population on campus is becoming much more diversified. This study was a phenomenological inquiry into the social engagement experiences of local and non-local Chinese students in their first year at a university in Hong Kong. Qualitative data was obtained from 10 focus groups. The findings suggested that the majority of the students in the study were active in social engagement and most achieved a sense of belonging to the university or its sub-communities. The culture in student communities played an important role in students' social engagement. It pushed students to become intensively involved in out-of-class activities and challenged them to reflect on the direction in which they would carry this historical legacy forward in the diversifying campus.     

New immigrant parents’ experiences in a parent education programme

The immigrant population in Hong Kong is steadily increasing every year. This immigrant population largely comprises families, most of whom have pre-school and school-age children. However, limited information is known on the practices that immigrant parents adopt when they become involved in their children’s schooling. In the present study, the researcher implemented a Quality Education Fund project called ‘Building a caring community: Family support and empowerment.’ The project aimed to promote parent education and to build a caring community by implementing a group parent education program (GPEP) for low-income and new immigrant parents. The parent leaders conducted an outreach parent education program in which the low-income, new immigrant parents (target parents) had their children enrolled in two kindergartens. The parent leaders imparted parenting knowledge, shared positive parenting strategies, and exchanged their own experiences with target parents. The present research aims to study how new immigrant parents evaluate their experiences and the effectiveness of the GPEP. Results suggest that providing opportunities for mutual support and emotional healing correlates with improved parenting attitudes and practices.     

Transnational higher education for capacity development? An analysis of British degree programmes in Hong Kong

Drawing upon a project on British transnational education (TNE) programmes offered in Hong Kong, this paper interrogates the capacity development impact of TNE on the students, the Hong Kong Government and the programme providers. It addresses the questions: ‘What capacity is being developed in TNE operations?’ and ‘For whom?’ Our findings reveal multiple capacities at play. As TNE has been traded between British and Hong Kong universities and facilitated by the Hong Kong Government's laissez-faire doctrine, as a commodity in the neoliberal trade-in-education regime, students' interests are often sidelined. This paper calls for a critical reflection on this TNE model.     

Do reading practices make a difference? Evidence from PIRLS data for Hong Kong and Taiwan primary school Grade 4 students

This study examined the influence of classroom pedagogic reading practices and out-of-school practices in explaining why the reading attainment of Hong Kong Grade 4 students was superior to that of their counterparts in Taiwan in the 2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. Analyses of scores from 9301 students (4712 from Hong Kong and 4589 from Taiwan) revealed that independent reading in school made a distinctive contribution to the reading performance of Hong Kong and Taiwan students after controlling for the effects of students’ and parents’ reading attitudes, the availability of supportive home educational resources and student engagement in a range of reading practices. Out-of-school informational reading was found to be negatively associated with students’ reading attainment for both Hong Kong and Taiwan students. There was evidence that reading aloud in class in Taiwan classrooms significantly contributed to the Taiwan students’ poor reading performance.     

Enhancing Postsecondary Intergroup Relations at the University Through Student-Run ESL Instruction

This case-study research examines the prosocial potential of a cooperative-learning, content-based English as a second language program in which native-born and immigrant undergraduate pairs work to develop the immigrant students' academic English. Majority and immigrant student interpretations of their partnerships regarding status and stereotype confirmation/disconfirmation were investigated. Twelve informants comprised 6 pairs representing the program's 3 cooperative models. All 6 native-born informants were White women ages 18 to 26. Four male and 2 female participants, ages 20 to 36, were immigrants from Cambodia, Laos, Cape Verde, and Hong Kong. Data collection included interviews, document review, and observation during two semesters. The theoretical frameworks are cooperative learning, decategorization, and investment informed data analysis. This research found partners' personalized interaction instrumental in promoting status equalization and undermining category-based preconceptions. Interaction between the participants' activated identities and the contact's structural features influenced the development of stereotype-disconfirming and -confirming relationships.     

Parental account of support for specific learning difficulties in Hong Kong

Parents play a significant role in the education of children with special needs. Recent national policies have aimed to improve support for students with specific learning difficulties and their families in Hong Kong. Literature on the experiences of children with specific learning difficulties in Hong Kong is scarce. This study, by Kim Fong Poon‐McBrayer of the Hong Kong Institute of Education and Philip Allen McBrayer of the University of Guam, attempts to capture a glimpse of the support for students with specific learning difficulties through their parents' account of experiences with school practices. Findings indicated parents' frustration over the use of grade retention as a remedial method, the use of expulsion as a disciplinary strategy, limited instructional support, and a lack of school‐initiated communication to inform, engage or support parents in the special education process which in turn resulted in a poor home–school relationship. Recommendations centred on policy enforcement, reducing class size and teacher workload, and improving home–school relationships.     

The education of new Chinese immigrant children in Hong Kong: challenges and opportunities

In describing the current status of the education of new Chinese immigrant children (NCIC) in Hong Kong and to provide data useful for designing new policies, this article highlights the region's rise of new Chinese immigrants and the characteristics of the NCIC. Challenges to improve access to and equity in education in Hong Kong, overall quality of education for the NCIC and future possibilities are discussed. Implications from other countries are also included.     

香港在校大学生来内地求学的行为意向研究——基于计划行为理论的解释框架

随着我国综合国力和国际竞争力的不断提升,香港与内地在教育交流方面日益频繁,来内地高校求学的香港在校大学生数量逐年上升。文章基于计划行为理论,采用结构方程模型对香港8所公立高校在校大学生来内地求学的行为态度、主观规范、感知行为控制等三个因素进行定量分析。结果显示,三个因素对香港在校大学生来内地高校求学的行为意向均具有显著影响,其中,行为态度对行为意向的影响最大,其次是感知行为控制,主观规范影响最小。基于研究结果,提出提升内地高校质量和国际声誉、改革教学模式、重视对香港在校大学生的招生宣传、创造良好香港在校大学生毕业就业环境等对策建议。