The evaluation of government-financed research has become increasingly important in the last few decades in terms of increasing the quality of, and payoff from, the research that is done, reducing the cost of doing it, and lending public credibility to the manner in which research is funded. But there are very large differences throughout the world in the extent to which systems used promote these results. This paper briefly presents the dimensional results of a study designed to comparatively evaluate the national-level research evaluation models in sixteen countries on five merit-defining dimensions.
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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.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]

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.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]