Whole-school anti-bullying programs are widely recognised as the best, evidence-based approaches to reducing school bullying. Despite this, few published studies have been conducted within high schools to systematically evaluate anti-bullying interventions using a control group design. To this end, a quasi-experimental study of anti-bullying interventions was conducted in four international secondary schools in Hong Kong. The four secondary schools were randomly assigned to: (a) a whole school curriculum intervention, (b) a combined Year 7 curriculum and shared concern intervention, (c) a shared concern only intervention and (d) a control school. The sample consisted of 549, year 7 students who anonymously completed a pre-test / post-test questionnaire. Results were analysed using several ANOVA procedures. When post-test composite bullying scores were adjusted for pre-test school differences, a highly significant main effect for schools was found (F = 7.70 p < .001). In further comparisons, a repeated-measures ANOVA showed the most significant reduction in bullying composite scores occurred when a whole school intervention was used (F = 10.73 p < .001). Bullying levels increased from pre-test to post-test over the school year for both the control school and the school that adopted a shared concern only approach. These results provide strong support for the need for high schools to adopt a whole-school preventative and management approach if they are to be effective in reducing student bullying.
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Researchers in teacher education have suggested that many of teachers classroom decision-making and actions are based on some sort of theoretical framework which are beliefs driven (Armour-Thomas, 1989; Clark & Peterson, 1986; Marland, 1995, 1998). Such beliefs driven theoretical framework constitute teacher's conceptions about teaching and learning and build up their principles of classroom practice. These beliefs or theoretical frameworks are given various labels in literature including implicit theories or personal theories about teaching and learning. Studies of teacher's personal theories are often conducted by means of qualitative methods such as interview, narratives and analysis of reflective journal about teaching. Quantitative measure by means of questionnaire or inventory to study personal theories are few but they are useful to provide a global picture or profiles of teachers beliefs/conceptions about teaching and learning. This paper attempts to develop and validate an instrument to measure teacher's personal theories. By means of which teacher educators and teacher education students can have an understanding of student teachers beliefs and conceptions about teaching and learning, which is considered a functional way of helping them learn how to teach in their course of professional development. Thus the validated measure assists teacher educators to evaluate the effectiveness of the teacher education program with reference to the identified profile of personal theories of their students. Also, the relations of demographic variables of teacher education students and their personal theories were analysed to investigate if there is any influence of age, gender and electives studied on the students beliefs or personal theories about teaching/learning, based on which implications and suggestions are drawn for teaching education development and research.
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Educators and researchers have suggested that positive relations with their parents would have significant impacts on children's attitudes and behaviours. The present study has two purposes: (a) to examine whether parent-child relations would influence low achievers' liking of school, and (b) to investigate whether low achievers' parent-child relations and liking of school could be improved through a focused intervention emphasizing interpersonal skills. Using a confirmatory factor analysis approach, the path from prior self-concept of parent relationship to subsequent self-concept of academic affect were examined using a sample of students who failed in the school system of Hong Kong but were provided with further education opportunities through an innovative program known as Project Yi Jin initiated by the Special Administrative Region government of Hong Kong (N = 2,779). Controlled for the effect of prior academic affect, prior parent-child relations were found to have a significant, though small, association with subsequent academic affect. The results supported the positive influence of parent-child relations on children's liking of school. Analysis of variance of pretest and posttest scores showed that as a result of a program emphasizing the development of interpersonal skills, the students improved in both parent-child relations and liking of school. The findings have important implications for a holistic approach to children's education by incorporating parent education as an important component of the education system.
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A total of 199 students from a school in Hong Kong responded to 25 items in a survey. Principal components analysis found 4 school motivation factors consistent with the Task, Effort, Competitivenes and Praise scales of the McInerney et al. Inventory of School Motivation, 1 education aspiration factor and 1 career aspiration factor. The correlations indicated significant relations between the motivation factors and the aspiration factors. A path model applying a structural equation modeling approach found that Task, Effort and Competitiveness orientations had relatively stronger impacts on education aspirations whereas Task and Praise had stronger impacts on career aspirations. Analysis of variance found that grade 7 students had significantly higher Task, Effort and Praise scores and higher career aspirations than students from grades 9 and 11. The drastic drop from grade 7 of motivation scores--especially Task and Effort, both pertaining to a mastery orientation dimension that has been assumed to be a major driving force for excellence-calls for urgent attention to student motivation in junior secondary classes.
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This paper describes the development of Learning Study in Hong Kong and analyses the factors that lead to the success and ready acceptance of Learning Study by the school community in Hong Kong. The paper first describes how Lesson Study, as described by Stigler and Hiebert, was brought into the Hong Kong context through a three year project in 2000. It was then further developed and renamed Learning Study to differentiate it from the Japanese Lesson Study. The potential of Learning Study as a powerful tool for teachers' professional development was quickly recognized. Two subsequent projects led to the adoption of Learning Study by over 100 primary and secondary schools in a matter of four years. The success of Learning Study in Hong Kong will be analysed under the following factors: methodology, partnership with higher education institutions, positioning, reform context and culture, and dissemination strategy. Its contributions to pre-service education, teachers' continuing development, research and development in education, and also to improving the status of the profession as a whole are also discussed.
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Drawing on the empirical data of the Learning Study projects conducted in primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong since 2000, this paper discusses the relationship between teacher act and the improvement of students' learning. This paper argues that students' perception of the object of learning depends on how they experience the pattern of variation created by the teacher during the teaching act. "What varies" and "what remains invariant" both matter. Thus teaching should be a conscious structuring act, where teachers actively construct the learning experiences for the students so that they can experience appropriate variations in the object of learning, in order to bring about the intended discernment and learning.
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The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of "Focused Word Recognition Method" in teaching a student with reading difficulties in Hong Kong. "Focused Word Recognition Method" is considered as a structured and systematic instruction for word identification. The Chinese characters are grouped for instruction by making use of their phonological, orthographic or semantic features. The participant in this study was an 11-year-old student in the Intensive Remedial Teaching Programme in Primary Schools (IRTP). He had difficulties in reading and writing Chinese characters. The stimulus materials of this study were five lists of Chinese characters. Each list consisted of characters with similar orthographic features. This training programme lasted for four weeks. Comparison of the results of pre-tests and post-tests showed that the student made significant improvement in the performances of dictation, reading aloud and fill-in the blanks activities.
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This paper reports on some research from an ARC project conducted by the authors into the ways in which Australian universities establish colaborations with partners in Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea to offer courses in those countries. One feature of such collaborations in Hong Kong is the way in which, since 1997, the local Special Administrative region government regulates the provision on 'non-local courses' by mean of an ordinance. The paper describes and analyses the impact of the ordinance on both local and overseas stakeholders. This impact represents a particular enactment of matters of globalisation and localisation in education. The paper reports on the issues, which have emerged which, are leading to current moves to modify the ordinance's provisions.
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It is widely accepted that assessment has a link with learning. One key factor in the link is formative assessment. Formative assessment is generally defined as taking place during a course with the express purpose of improving pupil learning. However, there is still considerable disagreement over the roles of teachers and pupils in this process (Torrance & Pryor 1998, p.8). It is therefore very important to understand how teachers perceive their roles and their pupils' roles in the formative assessment events. This paper will report on an investigation into teachers' perceptions of their roles and their pupils' roles in the formative assessment process. The investigation, which involved over 1000 teachers from 35 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, invited teachers to show their views by completing a questionnaire. To supplement the data collected from the questionnaire survey, a sample number of teachers were interviewed. Discussion will be focused on a comparison of the findings with the current literature, leading to some implications for the roles of teachers and pupils in the formative assessment process.
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This paper presents the contextual background of a doctoral study that investigates the process of assessment of teacher competence based on supervisors' judgment of the pre-service teachers' classroom performance. The study approaches classroom observation as a process conducted under time constraint. As such it is regarded as a process that reflects only restricted aspects of the teacher's competence. The variables in this study are identified and linked by a model of the decision-making process following models of cognitive process in performance appraisal. The variables are within the scope of competence, criteria for assessment, the supervisors' perceptions of the teacher appraisal, supervisor's observation of classroom performance and the determinants of the judgment process. The subjects in this study are supervisors of pre-service teachers in an institute of education in Hong Kong. The organizational and contextual aspects are considered as important determinants in the process of supervisors' judgment of the pre-service teachers' classroom performance. The paper presents a brief introduction to the institution, a discussion on its demands on teacher practicum, practice and procedure in classroom observation and a report on the preliminary findings of supervisor's views on classroom observation.
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