The present study evaluated the implementation and impact of the "general university requirements" (GUR) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative methods included a four-year longitudinal online survey, Collegiate Learning Assessment Plus (CLA+), and secondary analyses of student feedback data in different years. Qualitative methods included focus groups and qualitative evaluation forms involving students and teachers as well as a longitudinal case study. Results showed that students displayed positive development based on different developmental indicators of the five desired graduate attributes of PolyU in their study of the four-year program. Both students and teachers also generally showed positive perceptions of the GUR, with reference to its subject content, teaching and learning, and benefits. Several major concerns regarding the GUR were also identified.
[Copyright of International Journal of Child & Adolescent Health is the property of Nova Science Publishers, Inc.]

Summary While the increasing awareness of risk in late modernity has resulted in the proliferation and complication of parental roles and choices, few attempts have been made to explore how parent education can empower parents to reconstruct parenthood and transform parental lives. Based on the results of a mixed-methods study conducted in Hong Kong, this article discusses the possible outcomes and experiences of a parent education program that aimed to facilitate parents' holistic growth in dealing with the prevailing culture of intensive parenting. The program was composed of 30'h of seminars and workshops. The participants included 387 Hong Kong Chinese parents recruited from seven primary schools and 27 nursery schools. A pretest'posttest assessment survey and postintervention focus groups were adopted for the evaluation methods. Findings The quantitative results showed that the participants experienced an enhancement in confidence, understanding, and trust in parenting. The qualitative findings indicated that the program helped the participants reflect upon the meaning of parenthood, underline the gains and accomplishments of parenting, and adjust parental expectations. They could also foster parent'child relationships in accordance with their children's developmental needs, uniqueness, and emotions. As a result, these parents were more ready to face the challenges of the anxious parenting culture. Applications The findings support the reconceptualization of parent education as a reflexive practice. Such practice can unleash parents' capacity to construct knowledge from their lived experiences and reconstitute their reflexive and emotional selves to negotiate life choices among the diversity of options in childrearing.
[Copyright of Journal of Social Work is the property of SAGE Publications. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468017316656090]

School-based pipelines/routes for university and technical engineering education are recognised as important for economic development and the high-school years are critical for shaping students' career aspirations and attitudes. This study examined a range of attitudes/experiences on the aspirations of secondary students to pursue engineering education and vocation. Experiential/attitudinal aspects covered demographic characteristics, family/school support, practical learning experiences, curricular/extra-curricular experiences, attitudes, perceptions and engineering-efficacy that may affect aspirations. A validated questionnaire capturing these variables was administered to respective samples of secondary school students from four Chinese geo-engineering regions (Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and ShanXi; 5965 students) that represent differing degrees of industrialisation. Comparative analyses across regions show 'doing' engineering is key to motivating students' aspirations; while regional variations suggest that schooling and family factors are generally more significant in industrialising Mainland cities, and extracurricular opportunities and personal factors are more significant for students in post-industrial Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Compare is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd.. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2017.1347033]

Many post-industrial societies have seen a decline in secondary school students' aspirations to become an engineer. Hong Kong (HK) is a post-industrial region within a larger industrialising society where no current study identifies engineering aspirations of secondary students. A representative sample of HK (3724 students/23 schools) explored engineering attitudes, perceptions, motivation, efficacy and curricular/extracurricular experiences using a purposely defined questionnaire. Contributions of these factors to students' aspirations were differentiated into individual and school contexts using hierarchical linear modelling and structural equation modelling. Descriptive analyses identified boys and younger students in single-sex schools had the most positive attitudes towards engineering but school-based engineering opportunities did not provide significant contributions to students' aspirations. Aspirations were affected by students' engineering efficacy, practical 'hands-on' experience and limited science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curricular experience. Similarities between HK and many post-industrial societies, and curriculum/pedagogical implications concerning efficacy for secondary school engineering education are identified.
[Copyright of European Journal of Engineering Education is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd.. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2018.1435629]

Building on Carey and Smith’s work on epistemology of science, this study characterized elementary students’ scientific epistemology from the role-of-idea and theory-building perspective. The participants included 102 elementary students in Hong Kong. Open-ended questions and coding schemes were developed to examine and characterize their epistemic understanding of science. Four key dimensions were identified: role of idea, theory-fact understanding, theory revision and creation, and social process of scientific progress. The general pattern showed that students’ views of scientific inquiry ranged from seeing it as a mechanical process involving concrete materials and sets of scientific skills, to viewing it as an idea-driven process comprising collective theory-building and knowledge creation. The analysis showed that these students generally had a limited understanding of the role-of-idea and theory-building in science. Quantitative analysis indicated that this conceptualized epistemology of science was an important predictor of students’ academic performance in science. Implications for science education and future research are discussed.
[Copyright of The Asia - Pacific Education Researcher is the property of Springer Science & Business Media. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40299-018-0411-4]

This paper examines the early childhood context of Hong Kong (HK) which is characterised by an entirely privatised system. The level of knowledge a child possesses in early childhood can be a determining factor in their admission into desirable kindergartens or primary schools. Given HK’s privatised early childhood education system, the quality of a child’s learning is directly tied to the education services their parents provide independently or can afford financially. The study reported in this paper adopts a narrative inquiry approach to an under-researched area of early childhood education, namely the voices of parents within home learning environments and how the lengths they go to provide their children with a quality education.
[Copyright of Education 3-13 is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2017.1310272]

Research Findings: The objective of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of Incredible Years Basic Parent Training (IYPT Basic) in a community clinic setting in Hong Kong. IYPT Basic is a Western program developed to promote children’s academic, social, and emotional regulation skills and to reduce conduct problems among typically developing children. The program has not been tested in non-Western cultures, where the challenges for parents of children with developmental disabilities can be different. The IYPT Basic was adapted slightly to accommodate cultural characteristics in Hong Kong. Parents of 52 preschoolers with developmental disabilities were randomly assigned to either the IYPT Basic or a waitlist control. Parent and child dyads were assessed before and after the 12-week intervention/waitlist period via self-reports and spouse/kin reports and videotape coding by observers blind to the intervention/waitlist status. Significant intervention benefits included (a) increase in positive and reciprocal parent -child interaction, (b) reduction in parental stress, and (c) decrease in oppositional behavior among the children. The parents’ attendance, satisfaction, and homework compliance was high. Practice or Policy: IYPT Basic, when implemented with cultural sensitivity, can be effective for —and well received by—Chinese parents of preschoolers with developmental disabilities in a community setting.
[Copyright of Early Education & Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2018.1461987]

The academic year 2012/13 marked a major milestone in the history of Hong Kong higher education as it witnessed the admission of two markedly different cohorts of Cantonese-speaking freshmen to the city's English-medium universities: those embarking for the last time upon the traditional 3-year programme modelled on the British system of initial disciplinary specialisation and those commencing the new 4-year programme featuring an American-influenced first year of general education. This article presents the findings of a study which sought to compare the perceptions and experiences of the two cohorts on the challenging process of adjusting to the demands of university study. It was hypothesised that students in the 3-year cohort (3YC) would experience fewer difficulties adjusting to university learning and teaching than the 4-year cohort (4YC) as it was assumed that their A-level programme (years 12–13) placed greater emphasis on university-related skills, practices and habits of mind than the new senior-secondary curriculum (years 10–12). This hypothesis was tested by means of a survey completed by 1480 students at Hong Kong Polytechnic University towards the end of the academic year. The results largely support this hypothesis, although the evidence suggests that both cohorts had adjusted moderately well to university study by the end of the year. The results indicate that the principal difference between the two cohorts and the key to the 3YC's smoother transition was their greater confidence and competence in English, which presumably stemmed from their extra year at school and the greater depth of the traditional sixth-form curriculum.
[Copyright of Journal of Further & Higher Education is the property of Routledge.]

The University of Hong Kong (HKU), following its establishment in 1911, has assumed the mission of bridging British and Chinese cultures, to prepare European and Chinese elite youth for political and other professional careers, and thus to improve Britain's cultural influence in competition with other western powers with regard to China. Dominated by its colonial character and pragmatic orientation, Chinese education at HKU was confined to no more than a supplementary subject at the initial stage. However, colonial crisis and cultural changes in the 1920s and 1930s, together with the endeavours of local cultural and commercial elites, made advanced Chinese education at HKU necessary and possible, and led to an independent unit for Chinese education and Chinese studies being established and strengthened. Organisational and curricular reforms before the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941 led to further modernisation and solidified the structure of Chinese education at this university, laying the essential foundation for its post-war recovery and development. The evolution of Chinese education at HKU demonstrated well the subtle entanglements of education, culture and politics in a colonial context, through which coexistence and tensions between tradition and modernity, between China and the West, and between the imperial and republican intellectuals were also vividly revealed.
[Copyright of History of Education is the property of Routledge.]

We examine school choices made by western expatriate parents in post-colonial Hong Kong in order to understand the essence of imagined global citizenship and its implications for existing ethnic and class inequalities in the education system. Responding to changes in the global job market, a small but increasingly visible group of parents are seeking to challenge what they see as the constraints of expatriate life by developing global opportunities for their children through Cantonese language acquisition in the local education system. Drawing on the sociological literature on school choice and middle-class identity, we argue that these parents are negotiating for themselves a global imaginary in which cultures can easily be traversed and social class is levelled. But such global desires, we suggest, can also replicate colonial privilege in a way that marginalises poorer schools and other ethnic minorities in the education system.
[Copyright of British Journal of Sociology of Education is the property of Routledge.]