The effectiveness of private tutoring: students’ perceptions in comparison with mainstream schooling in Hong Kong

This paper examines Hong Kong students’ perceptions on the effectiveness of private supplementary tutoring relative to mainstream schooling. Drawing on survey and interview data, it shows that large proportions of secondary school students receive private tutoring. Students generally perceive private tutoring and private tutors to be more effective in the provision of examination support compared with mainstream schooling and teachers. However, perceptions vary according to students’ self-reported academic levels and motives for taking private tutoring. The operations of the parallel sector of private tutoring have significant implications for the nature of schooling and therefore need to be considered by teachers and school administrators. The Hong Kong data contribute to the international analysis of private tutoring and add a significant component to the wider conceptual literature.     

Mathematics teaching during the early years in Hong Kong: a reflection of constructivism with Chinese characteristics?

This paper characterizes early mathematics instruction in Hong Kong. The teaching of addition in three pre‐primary and three lower primary schools was observed and nine teachers were interviewed about their beliefs about early mathematics teaching. A child‐centered, play‐based approach was evident but teachers emphasized discipline, diligence and academic success. Observations also revealed practices reflective of both constructivist and instructivist pedagogies. Results from interviews suggest that teachers' traditional cultural beliefs about instruction were challenged by western ideologies introduced in continuing professional development courses and by notions promulgated by the educational reforms. Both consistencies and inconsistencies between teachers' beliefs and practices were identified. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Mainland Chinese students at an elite Hong Kong university: habitus–field disjuncture in a transborder context

Drawing on in-depth interview data from 31 mainland Chinese (MLC) students in a Hong Kong university, this article conceptualises MLC and Hong Kong higher education as two dissonant but interrelated subfields of the Chinese higher education field. The article argues that these MLC students’ habitus, one that possesses rich economic, social and cultural capital, prompts a strong sense of entitlement to anticipated privileges. However, this sense of entitlement is disrupted by the differential capital valuations across these fields. There is thus notable habitus–field disjuncture, which, exacerbated by the hysteresis effect, gives rise to a sense of disappointment and ambivalence. This article demonstrates how the Hong Kong education credential, which these students initially set out to pursue as a form of capital, can become a disadvantage at multiple levels; the article illustrates that capital valuation and conversion in a transborder context is not a straightforward, but rather a complicated and sometimes contradictory, process.     

Reading-related behavioral characteristics of chinese children with dyslexia: The use of the teachers’ behavior checklist in Hong Kong

Primary school teachers rated the frequency of occurrence of 65 reading-related behavioral characteristics of Grade 1 to Grade 6 Chinese school children in Hong Kong. An item factor analysis based on ratings on 554 students yielded two major dimensions of behavioral characteristics on reading and writing problems, and sequencing and spatial difficulties. In predicting the literacy and cognitive skills of a separate sample of 184 school children, gender, age, and the two empirical scales developed on the basis of factor analysis were used as predictors in regression analyses. The findings indicated that reading and writing problems emerged as the most predominant predictor of various literacy and cognitive deficits. The two mean scores of behavioral characteristics for children with dyslexia were significantly elevated as compared with those for children without dyslexia. Implications of the findings for screening dyslexia and predicting specific cognitive deficits using classroom-based behavior checklists are discussed.     

University students’ conceptions of the good teacher: A Hong Kong perspective

One way that universities assess teaching effectiveness is by eliciting student feedback. However, what standards do students themselves use to judge whether a lecturer is a ‘good’ teacher? As part of a study carried out at a Hong Kong university, students were interviewed about their first-year learning experience and asked what they felt constituted ‘good’ and “bad’ teaching. Unlike when asked to complete teacher effectiveness surveys, no criteria or characteristics were given. Responses focused primarily on teaching skills that supported student learning and encouraged critical thinking, particularly the teacher’s ability to give clear explanations supported by relevant, practical examples.     

Plotting Confucian and disability rights paradigms on the advocacy–activism continuum: experiences of Chinese parents of children with dyslexia in Hong Kong

This study represents an initial effort to understand the advocacy journey of Chinese parents of children with dyslexia in Hong Kong. Qualitative methods involving individual and group interviews were used to solicit detailed recount and perceptions of the experiences of 25 parents. Findings revealed a largely sequenced three-stage journey of parental advocacy: (1) parents’ emotional adjustment which involved self-blame and sorrow; (2) parents moving on to advocacy which comprised home-life adjustments, acquisition of knowledge about dyslexia, and seeking support through parent networks; and (3) parents advancing from advocacy to activism with increased knowledge about dyslexia and their conscious integration of Confucian and disability rights paradigms as strategies to interact and negotiate with authorities. This unique approach offers a conceptual framework for examining the interplay of dual or multiple cultural values affecting parent advocates’ actions. Their growth as advocates and activists affirmed the conceptualisation of the advocacy–activism continuum.     

School‐related social adjustment of Chinese primary school students with specific learning difficulties: A perspective from Hong Kong

Abstract

Studies in several countries have indicated that students with specific learning difficulties (SpLD) tend to exhibit problems in social adjustment in addition to their difficulties in academic learning. It is often recommended that students with SpLD undergo social skills training as well as receive intensive remedial teaching. This study investigated the extent to which school‐related social adjustment problems were evident in a sample of Chinese students of primary school age who had been identified by an educational psychologist as having a specific learning difficulty. Data were collected by questionnaire from 34 students with SpLD (individually interviewed; oral administration), 167 students without learning problems (group administration; written form), and the 34 teachers of the students with SpLD. Results indicated that although the SpLD students rated themselves lower than the students without learning difficulties on several aspects of social adjustment there was no evidence to suggest that they had major problems in this area. The teachers rated the SpLD students lower than the students rated themselves on most aspects of social adjustment, but the ratings given by the teachers suggested that they too did not perceive the students as having major inadequacies in social adjustment. The findings are discussed, with particular reference to the methodological problems associated with the use of self‐reporting as a technique to obtain data in research involving primary school‐age students.     

Motivation and engagement in the ‘Asian Century’: a comparison of Chinese students in Australia,Hong Kong,and Mainland China

The present study investigated multidimensional motivation and engagement among Chinese middle school students in Australia (N?=?273), Hong Kong (N?=?528), and Mainland China (N?=?2106; randomly selected N?=?528). Findings showed that a multidimensional model of motivation and engagement fit very well for all three groups. Multi-group invariance tests showed that the number of factors, factor loadings, factor correlations and item uniquenesses were invariant across the three groups – as were inter-correlations with a set of cognate correlates (class participation, school enjoyment, positive intentions, academic buoyancy) – hence no differences of ‘kind’. However, differences of ‘degree’ were indicated through significant mean-level effects between groups, with self-reports favouring Australian Chinese students over Hong Kong and (to a lesser extent) Mainland Chinese students. We propose these findings shed important light on Chinese students’ academic motivation and engagement and also on socio-cultural perspectives on motivation and engagement because they assist understanding about effects attributable to context and effects attributable to ethnicity. Given this, the study is a timely contribution to current understanding of the Chinese learner in this, the ‘Asian Century’.     

The influence of liberal studies on students’ participation in socio-political activities: the case of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong

This paper reports an investigation into how secondary student participants in Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement related this particular political experience to their learning of Liberal Studies. Questionnaire-based surveys and interviews were conducted to probe their interpretations of Liberal Studies’ impact on their political involvement and their perceptions of national versus local identity. The results indicate that students perceived the subject to have offered them background knowledge necessary for comprehending the movement rather than functioning as the cause of their participation against the backdrop of wider socio-economic conflicts in the community at large. Moreover, the current Liberal Studies curriculum seems to have reinforced students’ sense of a dichotomy between their local and national identities. Further examination of that dichotomy sheds light on both the review of Liberal Studies and another recently proposed, but swiftly shelved, curriculum: Moral and National Education. The study’s broad implications for citizenship education worldwide are also discussed.     

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.     

Examining Hong Kong students’ motivational beliefs,strategy use and their relations with two relational factors in classrooms

This study examines Hong Kong students’ motivational beliefs, strategy use and their relations with two relational factors in classrooms – student learning community and teacher support and involvement. A total of 2206 Grade Four to Grade Nine students responded to a questionnaire that comprised three instruments, including two scales measuring student learning community and teacher support and involvement in classroom, respectively, and the Chinese version of the Motivated Strategy for Learning Questionnaire. Our findings suggest that the two relational factors could play an important role in facilitating students’ intrinsic value, self‐efficacy, and strategy use, reflecting some culture‐specific features of students’ self‐regulated learning in Hong Kong classrooms. The implications of these findings for understanding Hong Kong students’ motivational beliefs and strategy use are discussed. Finally, suggestions for future research are put forward.     

‘It’s more foreign than a foreign country’: adaptation and experience of Mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong

Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of Mainland students crossing the border to pursue tertiary studies in Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. In contrast to those who have chosen to study in foreign countries, such as United States, United Kingdom or Germany, the Mainland group are studying and living in a society that is both familiar and strange to them due to unique political and sociocultural relationships between Hong Kong and the Mainland. Previous research has mainly focused on Mainland students’ motivations for choosing Hong Kong as their academic destination, but questions as to how they adapt to the university setting and host society have been under-researched. Adopting a qualitative approach, this study reports on the findings of focus groups exploring Mainland students’ adaptation to life and study in Hong Kong. Findings revealed that linguistic adaptation, social network, political identification and discrimination were the most significant acculturative stressors reported by Mainland students. Implications for how Mainland students can best adjust and how universities can better support them are discussed.     

Education,culture and politics: the evolution of Chinese education at The University of Hong Kong, 1911–1941

The University of Hong Kong (HKU), following its establishment in 1911, has assumed the mission of bridging British and Chinese cultures, to prepare European and Chinese elite youth for political and other professional careers, and thus to improve Britain’s cultural influence in competition with other western powers with regard to China. Dominated by its colonial character and pragmatic orientation, Chinese education at HKU was confined to no more than a supplementary subject at the initial stage. However, colonial crisis and cultural changes in the 1920s and 1930s, together with the endeavours of local cultural and commercial elites, made advanced Chinese education at HKU necessary and possible, and led to an independent unit for Chinese education and Chinese studies being established and strengthened. Organisational and curricular reforms before the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941 led to further modernisation and solidified the structure of Chinese education at this university, laying the essential foundation for its post-war recovery and development. The evolution of Chinese education at HKU demonstrated well the subtle entanglements of education, culture and politics in a colonial context, through which coexistence and tensions between tradition and modernity, between China and the West, and between the imperial and republican intellectuals were also vividly revealed.     

A qualitative study of secondary-school students’ perceptions of interpersonal teacher behaviour in Hong Kong

Learning Environments Research - This qualitative study explored Hong Kong students’ views and reactive emotions towards interpersonal teacher behaviour in their classrooms. Fifteen...     

Social foundations of public–private partnerships in education: the historical cases of post-war Singapore and Hong Kong

This paper compares public–private partnerships (PPPs) in education in post-war Singapore and Hong Kong. After the Second World War the Singapore government shied away from PPPs, while the state in Hong Kong collaborated extensively with the non-state sector in education. Singapore was a small city-state flanked by two Muslim nations, and its post-war regime faced challenges from the Malayan Communist Party. These pressures curbed the state’s involvement with missionary and Chinese bodies in education. Hong Kong, however, was a mono-racial society without any anti-Chinese neighbours, and its authorities were seldom challenged by a militant antagonist. Thus, its government was freer to involve non-state agents in education. This study reveals that PPPs are viable only when suitable non-state partners exist and when the state does not believe that such undertakings would expose the school system to an antagonist. It also urges scholars in future to explore the socio-political preconditions for PPPs.     

The management of participation in the policy‐making process: the case of the Education Commission in Hong Kong

In 1984 the Education Commission was established as a quasi governmental body to advise on all aspects of education policy in the colony. Within the Hong Kong context the Education Commission's establishment was novel for it created a single body to advise on all aspects of education policy and it involved a greater degree of public participation in the policy making process. This paper examines the motives for its establishment, the means by which the state maintained control of the policy making process and the impact of the policy measures initiated by the Education Commission.     

Adjustment problems,self‐efficacy,and psychological distress among Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong

The relationships among adjustment problems, self‐efficacy, and psychological distress were investigated in a sample of 207 Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong. A mediation‐effect model specifying that adjustment problems had an effect on psychological distress mediated by self‐efficacy was hypothesized and tested using structural equation modeling procedures. For comparison, a direct‐effect model and a direct‐and‐mediation‐effect model were also fitted to the data. The results indicated that the direct‐and‐mediation‐effect model provided the best and a reasonably adequate fit, suggesting that the effects of adjustment problems on psychological distress could be direct, but more importantly the effects could also be mediated by self‐efficacy. Implications of the findings for enhancing the self‐efficacy of students to promote their psychological well‐being are discussed.     

Sex differences in the missing-letter effect: A question of reading or visual–spatial skills?

When readers must search for a target letter while reading a continuous text, they are more likely to miss targets in frequent function words than in less frequent content words. This missing-letter effect has been found across many languages, methodologies, and types of reading materials. Despite the ubiquity of the missing-letter effect, sex differences have been reported, but their pattern is conflicting and no clear interpretation has been offered so far. In two experiments, sex differences were examined in the letter search task, while also measuring spatial and reading skills. In both experiments, the missing-letter effect was found for both genders and a larger missing-letter effect was found for faster readers. It is concluded that when sex differences are observed in the missing-letter effect, they are likely due to reading speed and not to spatial skills as previously hypothesized. Results are interpreted in light of the Attentional Disengagement model of the missing-letter effect.     

Civic education curriculum reform in Hong Kong: What should be the direction under Chinese sovereignty?

This article uses results from a cross-national analysis of the impact of varying approaches to civic education curriculum delivery on three learning outcomes, to draw conclusions about the value of a government-mandated compulsory, independent subject of civic education in the school curriculum. It starts from the context of Hong Kong, where there have been repeated calls for the government to reform civic education, and compares this context with that of England, where citizenship education was made a statutory subject in 2002. The article then examines from the cases of 25 societies whether a compulsory approach to and/or independent subject of civic education is associated with better learning of civic knowledge, knowledge of democracy, and patriotism. Finding that the impact of curricular approaches is somewhat negligible taking other factors into consideration, the article concludes that civic education reformers should consider the costs of limiting school autonomy in curriculum delivery.