Facilitating Chemistry Teachers to Implement Inquiry-based Laboratory Work

Science teachers generally find inquiry-based laboratory work very difficult to manage. This research project aimed at facilitating chemistry teachers to implement inquiry-based laboratory work in Hong Kong secondary schools. The major concerns of seven chemistry teachers were identified. They were most concerned about the lack of class time, shortage of effective instructional materials, and the need to teach large classes. To allay teacher concerns, teaching strategies were developed to aid teachers. The strategies include the use of guided inquiry rather than open inquiry, development of ten examples of authentic inquiry, and inclusion of student oral presentations as a key component of the inquiry process. Trials done in schools indicated that these strategies are useful.     

Prevalence and correlates of physical abuse in Hong Kong Chinese adolescents: a population-based approach.

OBJECTIVE: The objectives were to estimate the prevalence and correlates of physical abuse-related outcomes in the family setting in Hong Kong's adolescent population. METHOD: A cross-sectional study design was used. A randomly selected sample of 3,355 secondary school students in Kwai Tsing District of Hong Kong was surveyed. The response rate was 98%. RESULTS: The prevalence rates of corporal punishment, being beaten by parents for no apparent reason, being beaten to injury by family members in the past 3 months and any one of the above three were 4.9% (95% CI, 4.2% to 5.6%), 2.0% (95% CI, 1.5% to 2.5%), 1.1% (95% CI, .98% to 1.2%) and 6.6% (95% CI, 5.7% to 7.5%), respectively. Students who had experienced the above physical abuse-related outcomes were at a significant disadvantage for a wide range of morbidity indicators, including self-perceived bad health, anxiety and stress, somatic illnesses (such as asthma and epigastric pain), injuries and accidents, and hospitalization. They were more likely to have poor familial relations and coping skills, and to take up habits which potentially put their health at risk, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, and fighting with others. CONCLUSIONS: Our prevalence estimates of physical abuse in the family setting for a student population in Hong Kong is an improvement over previous local estimates of physical abuse occurrence, which were mainly based on case notifications and clinical samples. The results also show that the abused adolescents are growing up in an environment filled with physical, psychological, and familial adversities.     

Shoe collar height and heel counter-stiffness for shoe cushioning and joint stability in landing

ABSTRACT

This study examined the effects of shoe collar-height and counter-stiffness on ground reaction force (GRF), ankle and knee mechanics in landing. Eighteen university basketball players performed drop landing when wearing shoes in different collar height (high vs. low) and counter-stiffness (stiffer vs. less stiff). Biomechanical variables were measured with force platform and motion capturing systems. Two-way repeated measures ANOVA was performed with α = 0.05. Wearing high collar shoes exhibited smaller peak ankle dorsiflexion and total sagittal RoM, peak knee extension moment, but larger peak knee varus moment than the low collar shoes. Stiffer counter-stiffness shoes related to smaller ankle inversion at touchdown and total coronal RoM, but larger peak knee flexion and increased total ankle and knee sagittal RoM than the less stiff counter-stiffness. Furthermore, wearing stiffer counter-stiffness shoes increased forefoot GRF peak at high collar condition, while no significant differences between counter-stiffness at low collar condition. These results suggest that although higher collar height and/or stiffness heel counter used can reduce ankle motion in coronal plane, it would increase the motion and loading at knee joint, which is susceptible to knee injuries. These findings could be insightful for training and footwear development in basketball.     

Hong Kong: geopolitics and intellectual practice

This article illustrates how different geopolitical factors shaped the growth of Hong Kong studies. Focusing on the close relation between geopolitics and intellectual practice, this study scrutinizes the acceptance of Hong Kong as a legitimate research object during the British colonial era and the gradual marginalization of Hong Kong studies after 1997. It analyzes the change of research paradigms, conceptual frameworks and narrative practices in the field of Hong Kong studies in relation to colonial encounter, Cold War politics, and the rise of global Empire. It singles out a critical paradox of how the field of Hong Kong studies frequently sets Hong Kong into appearance and disappearance at the same time. This study concludes with some preliminary suggestions for applying an alternative approach to the continuity of Hong Kong studies.     

Disentangling genetic and environmental influences on early language development: The interplay of genetic propensity for negative emotionality and surgency,and parenting behavior effects on early language skills in an adoption study

Parenting and children's temperament are important influences on language development. However, temperament may reflect prior parenting, and parenting effects may reflect genes common to parents and children. In 561 U.S. adoptees (57% male) and their birth and rearing parents (70% and 92% White, 13% and 4% African American, and 7% and 2% Latinx, respectively), this study demonstrated how genetic propensity for temperament affects language development, and how this relates to parenting. Genetic propensity for negative emotionality inversely predicted language at 27 months (β = −.15) and evoked greater maternal warmth (β = .12), whereas propensity for surgency positively predicted language at 4.5 years (β = .20), especially when warmth was low. Parental warmth (β = .15) and sensitivity (β = .19) further contributed to language development, controlling for common gene effects.     

Resources mitigating the impediment of discrimination to the acculturation success of students migrated to Hong Kong

While discrimination against immigrants and resources for them likely influence immigrants’ acculturation success, how various resources moderate the influence of discrimination has not been clear. Achievement and social integration are indicators of acculturation success. From structural-functionalist theory, resources that mitigate the adverse influence of discrimination are likely to be those functional to the host society or its social integration. Earlier social integration with the host society thus may be a crucial determinant of acculturation success, partly by mitigating the adverse impact of discrimination. Conversely, resources such as welfare reception, affiliation with an organization in the home place, and fluency in the language of host society may aggravate the detriment of discrimination. These expectations are sustainable with a study of secondary school students who migrated from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong. Among the 1243 students, 416 had come to Hong Kong within 2 years. The supportive findings indicate that acculturation success in the face of discrimination would require early social integration into the host society and disconnection from the home place. Importantly, while fluency in the host language appeared to be conducive to acculturation success, it aggravated the adverse effect of discrimination on the success. Hence, communication in a discriminative context would be dysfunctional to the operation of host society.     

Parents' involvement in children's learning in the United States and China: implications for children's academic and emotional adjustment

This research examined parents' involvement in children's learning in the United States and China. Beginning in seventh grade, 825 American and Chinese children (mean age=12.74 years) reported on their parents' involvement in their learning as well as their parents' psychological control and autonomy support every 6 months until the end of 8th grade. Information on children's academic and emotional adjustment was obtained. American (vs. Chinese) parents' involvement was associated less with their control and more with their autonomy support. Despite these different associations, parents' heightened involvement predicted children's enhanced engagement and achievement similarly in the United States and China. However, it predicted enhanced perceptions of competence and positive emotional functioning more strongly in the United States than China.     

Higher-level knowledge construction in asynchronous online discussions: an analysis of group size, duration of online discussion, and student facilitation techniques

This study is concerned with the challenge of understanding what factors may influence students’ higher level knowledge construction. We defined higher level knowledge construction occurrences as the sum of the number of phases II to V measured using Gunawardena et al.’s (J Educ Comput Res 17(4):397–431, 1997) interaction analysis model. This paper is organized into two studies. In the first study, we examined the relationship between the frequency of higher level knowledge construction occurrences and group size, as well as the duration of the online discussion. Data were collected through online observations of 40 discussion forums. We found a significant positive relationship between group size and the frequency of higher level knowledge construction occurrences. However, there was no correlation between the duration of the online discussion and the frequency of such occurrences. In the second study, we examined the types of student facilitation techniques used. A further analysis of the data was conducted—of the 40 forums, 14 forums with higher incident rate of higher level knowledge construction occurrences were identified. Fourteen less frequent forums were then randomly chosen from the remaining forums. We found significant differences in the frequency of four student facilitation techniques employed between the more frequent group and the less frequent one. The results of this study suggest that using these four techniques more frequently may promote knowledge construction in asynchronous online discussions.     

Implementing Restricted Maximum Likelihood Estimation in Structural Equation Models

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is now a generic modeling framework for many multivariate techniques applied in the social and behavioral sciences. Many statistical models can be considered either as special cases of SEM or as part of the latent variable modeling framework. One popular extension is the use of SEM to conduct linear mixed-effects modeling (LMM) such as cross-sectional multilevel modeling and latent growth modeling. It is well known that LMM can be formulated as structural equation models. However, one main difference between the implementations in SEM and LMM is that maximum likelihood (ML) estimation is usually used in SEM, whereas restricted (or residual) maximum likelihood (REML) estimation is the default method in most LMM packages. This article shows how REML estimation can be implemented in SEM. Two empirical examples on latent growth model and meta-analysis are used to illustrate the procedures implemented in OpenMx. Issues related to implementing REML in SEM are discussed.