Assessment reform in Hong Kong: developing the HKDSE to align with the new academic structure

ABSTRACT

In alignment with the New Academic Structure, the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE) was launched in 2012 to replace the former Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) as certification for completion of secondary education, and the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE) as the main credentials for university admission in Hong Kong. Standards-referenced reporting is adopted for the HKDSE with the objective of reporting candidates’ results against a set of prescribed levels of achievement based on typical performances at those levels. Clearly defined standards facilitate learning and teaching as well as enable users of the qualification, including tertiary institutions and employers, to set appropriate entrance/job requirements. The standards are set and maintained by expert judgement supported by psychometric data to ensure fairness and consistency of standards across subjects and across cohorts. Systemic and implementation issues and their resolutions are discussed in the context of the education reform in Hong Kong.     

Social and cognitive correlates of children's lying behavior

The relation between children's lie-telling and their social and cognitive development was examined. Children (3–8 years) were told not to peek at a toy. Most children peeked and later lied about peeking. Children's subsequent verbal statements were not always consistent with their initial denial and leaked critical information revealing their deceit. Children's conceptual moral understanding of lies, executive functioning, and theory-of-mind understanding were also assessed. Children's initial false denials were related to their first-order belief understanding and their inhibitory control. Children's ability to maintain their lies was related to their second-order belief understanding. Children's lying was related to their moral evaluations. These findings suggest that social and cognitive factors may play an important role in children's lie-telling abilities.     

Misconceptions and biases in German students’ perception of multiple energy sources: implications for science education

Misconceptions and biases in energy perception could influence people's support for developments integral to the success of restructuring a nation’s energy system. Science education, in equipping young adults with the cognitive skills and knowledge necessary to navigate in the confusing energy environment, could play a key role in paving the way for informed decision-making. This study examined German students’ knowledge of the contribution of diverse energy sources to their nation’s energy mix as well as their affective energy responses so as to identify implications for science education. Specifically, the study investigated whether and to what extent students hold mistaken beliefs about the role of multiple energy sources in their nation’s energy mix, and assessed how misconceptions could act as self-generated reference points to underpin support/resistance of proposed developments. An in-depth analysis of spontaneous affective associations with five key energy sources also enabled the identification of underlying concerns driving people’s energy responses and facilitated an examination of how affective perception, in acting as a heuristic, could lead to biases in energy judgment and decision-making. Finally, subgroup analysis differentiated by education and gender supported insights into a ‘two culture’ effect on energy perception and the challenge it poses to science education.     

The effects of principals’ humor on teachers’ job satisfaction

Traditionally, education has been perceived as a most serious and disciplined undertaking. Schools have become so obsessed with discipline, standardized test scores, proper objectives, competence, and proficiency that they have turned into rather grim places. All too often teachers and students will say that school and learning are not enjoyable. This study was designed to investigate school principals’ overall frequency of humor use as perceived by teachers, and the relationship of principals’ humor use to teachers’ job satisfaction. This study also analyzed how teacher job satisfaction was influenced by principals’ frequency of humor use in different groups. Results of this study support the idea that principals who share humor in the workplace have teachers with higher job satisfaction than those principals who share very little or no humor in the workplace.     

Exploring high school students' and teachers' preferences toward the constructivist Internet‐based learning environments in Taiwan

This paper explores high school students' and teachers' preferences towards constructivist Internet‐based learning environments. The study proposes a framework, including two dimensions and five aspects, to illustrate the features of the Internet‐based learning environments. Based upon this framework, the Constructivist Internet‐based learning environment survey improvement (CILESI) was developed, which includes the scales of ease of use, multiple sources, student negotiation, reflective thinking, critical judgement and epistemological awareness. Questionnaire responses gathered from 630 high school students in Taiwan suggested that the CILESI showed adequate reliability in assessing students' preferences. Male students placed more emphasis on the student negotiation, critical judgement and epistemological awareness enhanced by the Internet‐based learning environments than female students did. In addition, the teachers of the sampled students (n?=?78) were also surveyed by CILESI. The teachers tended to express stronger preferences on the ease of use of the Internet‐based learning environments than did their students. However, students, when compared with their teachers, seemed to express more preferences towards the features of student negotiation, reflective thinking, critical judgement and epistemological awareness of Internet‐based learning environments.     

Shape-oriented storage and retrieval of geometric figures and chromosome images

Four advantages of storing and retrieving geometric figures and chromosome images through the use of shape-oriented similarity measures are presented. A complemented but not distributive lattice and a distributive but not complemented lattice are found. Answers to triangle related fuzzy queries such as “retrieve the triangles which are very similar to isosceles triangles but not similar to a given triangle Δx”, and chromosome related fuzzy queries such as “retrieve the chromosomes which are more or less similar to median chromosomes and very very similar to a given chromosome A” are presented and illustrated by examples. For shape-oriented storage of triangles, it is proposed to store the angles of each triangle in decreasing order of the magnitude and logically order all the triangles according to the magnitude of the angles. For shape-oriented storage of chromosomes, it is proposed to logically order all the chromosomes individually and independently according to the angular sums of its exterior biangles and interior biangles. The results may have useful applications in information storage and retrieval, artificial intelligence and pattern recognition.     

Increasing public understanding of transgenic crops through the World Wide Web

Transgenic crops among the most controversial "science and society" issues of recent years. Because of the complex techniques involved in creating these crops and the polarized debate over their risks and beliefs, a critical need has arisen for accessible and balanced information on this technology. World Wide Web sites offer several advantages for disseminating information on a fast-changing technical topic, including their global accessibility; and their ability to update information frequently, incorporate multimedia formats, and link to networks of other sites. An alliance between two complementary web sites at Colorado State University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln takes advantage of the web environment to help fill the need for public information on crop genetic engineering. This article describes the objectives and features of each site. Viewership data and other feedback have shown these web sites to be effective means of reaching public audiences on a complex scientific topic.     

The conflict detection and resolution in knowledge merging for image annotation

Semantic annotation of images is an important step to support semantic information extraction and retrieval. However, in a multi-annotator environment, various types of conflicts such as converting, merging, and inference conflicts could arise during the annotation. We devised conflict detection patterns based on different data, ontology at different inference levels and proposed the corresponding automatic conflict resolution strategies. We also constructed a simple annotator model to decide whether to trust a given piece of annotation from a given annotator. Finally, we conducted experiments to compare the performance of the automatic conflict resolution approaches during the annotation of images in the celebrity domain by 62 annotators. The experiments showed that the proposed method improved 3/4 annotation accuracy with respect to a naïve annotation system.     

Ramadan Fasting and the Propensity for Learning: Is There a Cause for Concern?

The literature indicates that glucose deprivation, dehydration, decreased sleep quality and quantity, and mood changes, independently and adversely can influence cognitive functions and therefore learning. The Ramadan fast is an annual religious act undertaken by Muslims where individuals refrain from consuming food and fluid during daylight hours, daily over 30 days. Alteration in eating times and sleep–wake cycles lead to a disruption in the body's daily circadian rhythm resulting in sleep perturbations and mood swings. Consequently, Ramadan fasting is linked to daytime lower glucose concentration, dehydration, decreased sleep quality and quantity, mood swings and elevated subjective feelings of fatigue and malaise. This review highlights how Ramadan fasting potentially poses learning difficulties as a result of the independent and/or combined effects of these factors.