This study examines teacher receptivity to the curriculum change embodied in the new environmental education guidelines in Hong Kong. A questionnaire survey, based on a 'receptivity to change' instrument, was distributed and case studies conducted. The analyses revealed that such variables as the perceived non-monetary cost-benefit of implementing the guidelines, perceived practicality, perceived school and other support, and issues of concern were predictors for teachers' behavioural intentions towards promoting environmental education. The qualitative part of the research also found that, in addition to the factor of perceived non-monetary costbenefit, the dominance of organizational factors may work to shape teachers' receptivity to environmental education.
[Copyright of Journal of Curriculum Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/002202700182871]

Teachers beliefs about their ability to affect students' performance is an important part of professionalism. This study compared 725 Hong Kong and 575 Shanghai primary in-service teachers on their teacher efficacy. Two Chinese versions of the 12-item Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale were used in this study since some wordings of the Hong Kong version of the Scale (HK-TSE) were different from the Shanghai version (STSE) as a result of cultural differences. Basically, the Shanghai teachers reported significantly higher efficacy than did the Hong Kong teachers. After reviewing these quantitative results, 86 follow-up questionnaires from Shanghai in-service teachers who also participated in the first part of this study were collected. Results of this qualitative part showed that the three most commonly cited factors for the contribution of teacher efficacy were: respect and confidence placed in them by students and parents, the training they received from universities and the experience they gained from daily teaching practice. Though Hong Kong in-service teachers had lower efficacy scores than the Shanghai counterparts.
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Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://www.aare.edu.au/aer/about.htm]

Teacher attitudes and practices are considered as essential in fostering parental involvement in school education. In Hong Kong, amongst possible types of home–school links, teacher–parent communication about children's learning has been agreed to be the primary concern of both schools and parents. This paper reports a test of a psychological model of teacher–parent communication in Hong Kong primary schools. The model has taken into account the theory of planned behavior, self-efficacy theory, expectancy theory and theories of family–school relations. Scales for measuring the criterion and predictor variables have been developed. Variables that associated with teacher communication intention and practices were identified and path analyses linking the variables in a conceptual model were conducted. Results show that teacher commitment and teacher efficacy in working with parents have significant predictive power for teacher intention. Teacher intention, together with teacher commitment, has predictive power for teacher's time spent in communicating with parents. Relationships between individual teacher beliefs and the criterion variables are also described and discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03055690050022661]

Changing educational priorities are reflected both in the literature and the models that seek to describe initial teachers' professional formation and learning. However, do new teachers' experiences conform to these models? A sampling of Hong Kong secondary school teachers over their first year as full-time teachers provides data from questionnaires and longitudinal interviews supporting a variety of processes and related models which highlight that becoming a teacher reflects individual differences. To account for this array of individual differences an interaction model is proposed that reflects the Chinese cultural context of this study - the 'dim-sum' model - a model that sites initial teachers' professional formation and learning within a multi-perspective and interactive learning context.
[Copyright of Teacher Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530500200252 ]