The deficit representation of youth at different levels of curriculum-making: a case study on the Liberal Studies curriculum in Hong Kong

This study explores whether the deficit approach to understanding youth, which has been widely critiqued in contemporary youth studies, could still be a dominant paradigm in an emerging curriculum which emphasises multiple-perspective thinking. The analysis compares the representations of youth in selected reference sources at different levels of curriculum-making of the Liberal Studies (LS) curriculum in Hong Kong. These includes: (1) the official website of the curriculum, (2) the textbooks and (3) the teachers' verbal accounts. The findings indicate that the curriculum contents at the institutional level (the LS official website) do not really favour a deficit representation of youth, but that the contents at the programme level and at the classroom level do intensify that deficit representation. The findings shed light on the discourse of youth in education regimes and inform future research.     

A Political Analysis of Community Influence over School Closure

This study seeks to understand community member participation in and influence over an urban school district’s school closure process. Data from interviews with School Board members, district administrators, and community members, as well as district documents and newspaper articles suggest that district administrators limited participation through committee membership and public hearing procedures. In addition, the development of an “objective” process served to legitimize the decision. Finally, higher income community members influenced the closure process through formal and informal mechanisms, while low-income community members exerted power through alliances with external (powerful) groups.     

Life satisfaction among highly achieving students in Hong Kong: do gratitude and the ‘good-enough mindset’ add to the contribution of perfectionism in prediction?

This study investigated whether gratitude and the ‘good-enough mindset’ added to the contribution of perfectionism in predicting life satisfaction in 245 Chinese highly achieving students in Hong Kong. Participants completed self-report questionnaires that included scales on life satisfaction, positive and negative perfectionism (perfectionistic striving and perfectionistic concerns), gratitude and the good-enough mindset. Measures of gratitude and the good-enough mindset explained a substantial amount of unique variance in the prediction of life satisfaction in addition to the contribution of age and measures on positive and negative perfectionism. Implications of the findings for integrating gratitude and the good-enough mindset in the development of effective positive interventions to cope with negative perfectionism in youth and adolescents are discussed.     

Assessment for community service types of experiential learning in the engineering discipline

While experential learning has been increasingly explored and adopted by higher education institutions, few have researched the appropriate assessment methods that can be aligned with the learning outcomes of experential learning. A literature review on the diverse forms of assessment currently used for community service types of experiential learning in higher education is presented in this paper to review their appropriateness in assessing experential learning. The paper also describes the assessment framework of the University of Hong Kong Sichuan Reconstruction Community Service Project, which is incorporated into a multidisciplinary community service learning project. Feedback from students and teachers are reviewed to gauge their preferences towards these assessments, as well as their opinions on assigning academic credits to experential learning projects.     

The core components of reading instruction in Chinese

The present study aimed at identifying core components of reading instruction in Chinese within the framework of the tiered intervention model. A curriculum with four teaching components of cognitive-linguistic skills was implemented in a Program school for 3 years since Grade 1. The findings showed that the Tier 1 intervention was effective in enhancing the literacy and cognitive-linguistic skills of children in the Program school. The positive effects were maintained at the end of Grade 2. Progress in both word-level and text-level cognitive-linguistic skills predicted significantly progress in reading comprehension. Based on the present findings, the four core reading components in Chinese were proposed—oral language, morphological awareness, orthographic skills, and syntactic skills. Comparing the Big Five in English and the four core components in Chinese reflects different cognitive demands for reading diverse orthographies.     

一种结合改进OTSU法和改进遗传算法的图像分割方法

为了自动确定图像分割的最佳阈值,提出了一种结合改进OTSU法和改进遗传算法的图像分割方法,即利用这种改进遗传算法对二维OTSU图像分割函数进行全局优化,该方法能够根据个体适应度大小和群体的分散程度自动调整遗传控制参数,从而能够在保持群体多样性的同时加快收敛速度,最后得到图像分割的最佳阈值,克服了传统遗传算法的收敛性差、易早熟等问题.在理论分析和仿真数据实验中,与二维OTUS图像分割法和基于基本遗传算法的图像分割法相比,使用该方法得出的阈值范围更加稳定,阈值计算时间有极大的降低,更能满足图像处理的实时性要求.     

Social Network Sites and Political Engagement: Exploring the Impact of Facebook Connections and Uses on Political Protest and Participation

Past studies have shown positive relationships between use of social network sites (SNSs) and political engagement, but an understanding of the mechanisms underlying the relationship is limited because the studies often did not take into account the diverse affordances of SNSs that can influence participation in different ways. Adopting the O-S-R-O-R (Orientation–Stimulus–Reasoning–Orientation–Response) model of political communication effects, this study examined the roles of Facebook network size, connections with public political actors, use for news, and political expression on political attitudes, protest, and participation. Structural equation analyses were conducted based on data from a national sample in Hong Kong, a city-state with one of the world’s highest Facebook penetration rates. Results showed that Facebook network size and connections with public political actors exhibit both direct and indirect effects on participation through Facebook news, expression, and efficacy. Facebook news exhibited indirect effects primarily though political expression. A discriminant function analysis also showed that age, education, and online news exposure were the most influential variables for distinguishing Facebook users and nonusers. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

短期丙酮酸-肉碱或丙酮酸-肉碱-壳聚糖补充对恒定负荷运动时能量代谢的影响

通过观察恒定负荷运动前后血液中葡萄糖、自由脂肪酸的变化和运动时主观感觉疲劳程度和RQ的变化，研究丙酮酸-肉碱或丙酮酸-肉碱-壳聚糖补充对机体运动时能量代谢和情绪的影响．结果提示：短期丙酮酸-肉碱补充能改善有氧运动中的主观感觉疲劳程度；促进安静时和有氧运动中脂肪的动员及提高脂肪供能的比例；添加壳聚糖后对以上效果没有影响，并且也不能改变高水平的血糖和FFA状况．     

麻省理工学院"全球化"策略对我国高等教育国际化的启示

国际化是衡量大学办学水平的重要指标,是世界一流大学的重要特征,也是中国高校"双一流"建设的必由之路.中国高校目前在国际化建设中存在缺乏面向全球的顶层谋划、缺乏高质量的国际合作、缺乏国际知名的一流声誉等问题.文章综合分析牛津大学、耶鲁大学、南洋理工大学、麻省理工学院等四所高校的国际化发展路径,发现麻省理工学院所进行的全球化策略实践卓有成效且对中国高校来说最具借鉴意义.文章梳理了麻省理工学院策略的三大经验:一是远期规划引领发展;二是国际合作为纽带;三是核心价值融入策略.对中国高等教育国际化具有三点启示:一是加强顶层谋划,构建面向世界的"一流格局";二是开展全面合作,探索面向未来的"中国智慧";三是根植中华文化,塑造凸显特色的"一流名望".     

Into the Unknown: Examining Neural Representations of Parent–Adolescent Interactions

The parent–adolescent relationship is important for adolescents’ emotion regulation (ER), yet little is known regarding the neural patterns of dyadic ER that occur during parent–adolescent interactions. A novel measure that can be used to examine such patterns is cross-brain connectivity (CBC)—concurrent and time-lagged connectivity between two individuals’ brain regions. This study sought to provide evidence of CBC and explore associations between CBC, parenting, and adolescent internalizing symptoms. Thirty-five adolescents (mean age = 15 years, 69% female, 72% Non-Hispanic White, 17% Black, 11% Hispanic or Latino) and one biological parent (94% female) completed an fMRI hyperscanning conflict discussion task. Results revealed CBC between emotion-related brain regions. Exploratory analyses indicated CBC is associated with parenting and adolescent depressive symptoms.