This study examines 'Faux Comprehension' and 'Pseudo-Understanding' among middle leaders and teachers in curriculum development, where apparent agreement masks deeper misalignments. Through a comparative case study and theoretical lens of action-driven sensemaking, the study analyzes four Hong Kong schools using questionnaires, interviews, and observations. Findings reveal: Faux Comprehension, where teachers superficially comply with leaders' directives, and Pseudo-Understanding, where misaligned goals are concealed by overconfidence. Both reflect overbearing leadership and cognitive biases. The study enriches sensemaking literature by incorporating compliance and cognitive bias perspectives, while recommending clearer guidelines and communication strategies to align educational practices with reform goals and enhance engagement. Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). 

Hong Kong went through a complete reform in its higher education curriculum, incorporating opportunities for interdisciplinary learning and holistic competency development. Almost eight years have passed since the reform, yet little is known about the current state of students' holistic competency development across different disciplines. Students' self-evaluation of their capacities in holistic competencies can provide us indirect evidence of student development of these competencies for quality assurance. This study does not only aim to explore how undergraduates in Hong Kong self-assessed their holistic competencies, but also to identify whether there were disciplinary differences. To do so, 2192 undergraduate students from six universities in Hong Kong were surveyed using the validated Students' Perception of Holistic Competencies Questionnaire. Analysis of the quantitative data revealed that students generally rated themselves strongest in Moral Values but weakest in Interpersonal and Leadership Competencies. However, no substantial mean difference across the different disciplines was evident in all six holistic competencies investigated. The overall results indicated that undergraduates in Hong Kong generally believe that they have a moderately high level of capability in holistic competencies. Copyright © 2022 Elsevier.

The purpose of this study is to examine the mediating role of Professional Development Initiatives (PDIs) in relation to the implementation of New Secondary School curriculum in Hong Kong and student learning. Data were collected from 414 Key Learning Area coordinators and subject heads who were responsible for managing curriculum of senior secondary education in 91 Hong Kong secondary schools. Results indicated that three types of PDI (i.e. curriculum planning, professional sharing and support for teachers) mediated the impact of teachers' collaborative practices on their conceptions of student learning. Whereas two PDIs have exerted mediating effect of teachers' curriculum orientation on student learning. Implications for facilitating teachers' curriculum implementation towards reform and sustaining various types of PDIs are discussed. Copyright ©2021 Elsevier .

This study examined the perceptions of two groups of teachers, namely Secondary 3 and Secondary 6, regarding effective pedagogical practices in relation to curriculum reform. A total of 1,215 teachers from 91 secondary schools participated in the study. Collaborative inquiry, instructional strategy and catering for learner diversity were conceived as the three most effective pedagogical practices for implementation of the reforms while seven perceived student learning outcomes were also identified. Further multi-group analyses supported invariance between the two teacher groups in their perceptions of student learning when applying the three pedagogical practices in the classrooms. Results of path analyses revealed that Secondary 6 teachers viewed collaborative inquiry as having a significant effect on all aspects of student learning, but such impacts were not seen as very likely in the view of Secondary 3 teachers. On the contrary, Secondary 3 teachers conceived instructional strategy as the most effective way to enhance student learning. Catering for learner diversity had a positive association with various aspects of student learning in the view of both teacher groups. The study concludes with the implication for enhancing professional development of teachers. Copyright © 2021 National Institute of Education, Singapore.

Student-driven approaches have generated positive results in student development. This study reports a Students as Learning Experience Designers (Student-LED) Project as one example of employing student-driven approaches to develop learning abilities, leadership skills and reflective habits, in the context of the new senior secondary curriculum reform in Hong Kong. In such reform, schools are encouraged to offer other learning experiences (OLE) to facilitate students’ all-round development. This Student-LED project can be seen as pioneering in its cultural context and for the target participants. Students in Hong Kong were traditionally described as lacking independence, which seemed to contradict the premise of student-driven approaches. The present study as a pilot shows that Hong Kong secondary school students could potentially benefit from a student-driven approach. Sense of autonomy and positional leadership opportunities were found to be important factors to student learning. The concerns of students and teachers during the process were also identified through reflective statements. This study provided some insights into the use of student-driven approaches with Hong Kong learners. Copyright © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Physical education in Hong Kong has gone through considerable changes over the past 50 years. Still, the pace and the status were relatively slower and lower compared with other subjects. The 1990s saw a gradual shift from sport-oriented to health-focused sports culture. This shift was chiefly highlighted when physical education became one of the eight key learning areas in the millennium year education reform. This article summarizes the major changes over the past 50 years of school physical education in Hong Kong, and anticipates the positioning of the future physical education.香港的體育在過去的五十年經歷了相當大的變化。不過，變化的步伐相比其他科目還是較慢，其地位也相對較低。從九十年代的競技運動面向逐漸轉向較注重健康的體育文化。這種轉變，促使體育在千禧年的教育改革之中成為了八大學習領域之一。本文總結這五十年來的香港體育的轉變情況，並為體育教育的未來定位作一展望。 Copyright © 2014 Hong Kong Baptist University.

核心素養已成為近些年來全球教育界關注的焦點，也引領著各地的教育改革。儘管在不同的地區，核心素養的內涵和特質有差異，但更多是呈現出共同之處。然而，如何有效地落實「素養導向的教育」卻仍未明確。本文分析了香港的教育改革經驗，綜合核心素養的相關理論和討論，探索香港在落實課程改革的發展脈絡，以期能對當前推行核心素養導向的教育改革提供參考和借鑑。In recent years, many places have adopted the concept of key competency as the basis of developing school curriculum. Researchers and academics are still debating the definition and nature of key competencies. Yet, they have come to some common understanding of what key competency is. However, it is not yet clear how to nurture students’ key competencies. This paper reports the experiences of Hong Kong in nurturing students’ key competencies. The experience of Hong Kong is reflected through analyzing the theories on key competence, and the implementation of curriculum and instruction reform since 2001. Copyright © 2017 高等教育文化事業有限公司.

2001年，香港課程發展議會發表《學會學習：課程發展路向》，開啟全面和影響深遠的課程改革。2014年，課程發展議會、香港考試及評核局、教育局檢視學會學習的實施後，發表《基礎教育課程指引─聚焦•深化•持續（小一至小六）》，以更新課程指引；新指引除回顧過去14年之實施成果外，亦補充舊課程指引之不足。本研究為回應教育局之小學課程指引，分為兩部分︰一、檢視課程改革的成效；二、分析課程改革受局限之根本問題。簡言之，香港課程改革歷經十多年，獲得一定成效，但仍存在不少的隱憂。從課程改革進展報告、質素保證視學報告、學校周年報告和國際研究報告，皆顯示課程改革取得不錯的成果。然而，學生雖在國際評量中表現優異，但承受著極大的學習和考試壓力；教師雖在課程改革和教學實踐中努力不懈、表現卓越，但仍面對沉重的工作壓力。香港課程改革要持續、有效地實施，亟需加強利害關係者之能量建構。In 2001, Hong Kong started a comprehensive and massive impacted curriculum reform through introducing the Learning to Learn. In 2014, Curriculum Development Council, Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority, and Education Bureau introduced the Basic Education Curriculum Guide: To Sustain, Deepen and Focus on Learning to Learn (Primary 1-6) to review the progress and achievements since the Learning to Learn curriculum reform. The Basic Education Curriculum Guide emphases for the ongoing curriculum renewal and updating over the past 14 years. This paper aims to review and discuss the Basic Education Curriculum Guide in 2014. The article is divided into two parts. First, it examines the effectiveness of curriculum reform. Second, it highlights the fundamental problem of curriculum reform in Hong Kong. In precise, even though the curriculum reform is more remarkable in Hong Kong over the last decade, it still challenged with a lot of impacts. The curriculum reform progress report, the quality assurance inspection report, annual school report and the international research report all show that the achievements of curriculum reform have been observed. However, students are pressed by course workload and examination pressure even their performance has been impressive in international assessments. Teachers always work hard in curriculum reform and teaching practice with exhibited outstanding performance. Nevertheless, the reform has led the intensification of teachers’ workload. Sustained and effective implementation of curriculum reform in Hong Kong depend on capacity building of difference stakeholders

This study examines the development of education and the curriculum for children with mental handicap in Hong Kong, the influence of the Target Oriented Curriculum (TOC) reform on the development of the curriculum for these children and its implementation in a special school over a period of two years. Three research strategies were used: historiography, naturalistic evaluation and a case study. Data was gathered by means of document collection, interviewing and observation, and analysed by the method of constant comparison. The findings are considered in the light of political, technological and cultural factors in the developments of education and curriculum for children with mental handicap, in the introduction of the TOC to these children, and in the school personnel's interpretation and views towards its implementation. The extent of implementation of the TOC in the case study school was examined with regards to changing practices in materials, teaching approaches and teachers' beliefs. Five key themes emerged from the study: the extent of TOC implementation at school and classroom levels, the Education Department's commitment towards the education of children with mental handicap, whether curriculum reform was truly considered necessary, the ethos of teaching and the culture of special education/schools. It was concluded that the implementation of the TOC for children with mental handicap was a poor example of effective change, given the problematic nature of the reform, in particular the inadequate management of the change process. It was also evident that this reform repeated many past failures, making long term success of the TOC in special schools somewhat doubtful.

Curriculum reform with a school-based approach is often assumed to offer schools and teachers autonomy at the site level, thus enabling them to develop a school-based curriculum and pedagogies to better fit the needs of students. Over the past decade, school-based curriculum development in Hong Kong has encountered issues that deserve worldwide attention and discussion. By reviewing the experiences of two schools in Hong Kong and drawing on international evidence, this study identifies key challenges and difficulties in school-based curriculum reform in three areas. Intellectually, there is a lack of a strong and broad shared knowledge base for curriculum development. As a result, most school-based curriculum initiatives have been piecemeal, fragmented and shallow. Structurally, many teachers have wasted time ‘re-inventing the wheel’ when developing school-based curricula. This effort has left them without sufficient time and energy to be effective in teaching. Culturally, reliance on school management to steer school-based reforms has prevented the development of a new culture in which teachers have the autonomy to make changes in their daily practices. Without cultural changes, curriculum reforms are not sustainable or effective. This study proposes a cooperative platform that integrates the strengths of central intelligence and school-based initiatives to maximise support for curriculum development at the teacher, school-site and system levels.
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