Background: The literature suggests two main types of orientations influencing teachers' choice of assessment strategies--"Knowledge acquisition and retention (K orientation)" and "Understanding and Conceptual change (U orientation)" with the former more directly related to surface learning types of assessment strategies and the latter more to do with strategies which encourage deep learning.
Aims: The study aimed to investigate what kinds of strategies teachers used to assess their students and how teachers' self-reported assessment strategies reflected the orientations suggested in the current literature. In addition, it identified the governing forces that impacted on the orientations of the teachers in their assessment strategy selection.
Sample: Ninety-four Hong Kong teachers from nine primary schools and six secondary schools took part in semi-structured interviews which focused on the strategies they used for assessing their students.
Results: The teachers reported using many types of strategies including tests, exams, projects, etc. The results of the study showed that there were forces that drew teachers towards "Knowledge acquisition and retention" orientation while selecting assessment strategies for use.
Conclusion: More effort has to be made to encourage teachers to attain a better balance between assessment aimed at measuring knowledge and assessment aimed at learning and understanding.
背景: 文獻指出教師在選擇評估策略上有兩種主要取向 - 「知識的獲取與記憶」(知識取向) 及「理解與概念的轉變」(理解取向)。「知識取向」的評估策略偏向淺層次的學習；而「理解取向」的評估策略是鼓勵深層次的學習。
目的: 本研究的目的是瞭解教師選擇甚麼評估策略來評估學生，分析他們選取評估策略的取向，及找出主導他們對評估策略取向的因由。
取樣: 本研究訪問了九十四位來自九所小學及六所中學的香港教師。
結果: 本研究的結果顯示教師曾經使用不同種類的評估策略，包括測驗、考試及專題計劃等。當教師選擇評估策略的時候，有一些外在的力量使他們傾向於選擇「知識取向」。
結論: 有需要增強相關的做法，令教師擺脫這些限制，使「用評估量度知識」與「用評估學習和理解」之間取得平衡。
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

This study investigated Participatory Decision-Making (PDM) in Hong Kong self-managing secondary schools. It also examined teachers' job satisfaction, organizational commitment, role ambiguity and role conflict in relation to PDM. A questionnaire survey involving 959 teachers from 214 schools was conducted. Principal components analysis was used to study the underlying subscales of teachers' PDM and their affective work outcomes. Correlational analysis, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and multiple regression analysis were employed to examine the relationships between teachers' PDM and their affective work outcomes.
Two decision domains (managerial and teaching) emerged in Hong Kong secondary schools. Teachers were generally more involved in PDM in the teaching domain than the managerial domain. Teachers from School Management Initiative (SMI) schools had greater participation in managerial decisions than non-SMI schools, but there was no significant difference in PDM between SMI and non-SMI teachers in decisions related to teaching.
Non-SMI teachers were more decisionally deprived in both the managerial and teaching domains than were SMI teachers. However, both SMI and non-SMI teachers were more decisionally deprived in the managerial domain than the teaching domain. For both managerial and teaching domains, principals' support for PDM was a significant positive predictor for teachers' actual participation. Six subscales of job satisfaction emerged from the analysis: work itself, supervision, colleagues, indirect participation in PDM, workload and responsibility. There were two subscales for organizational commitment which include present and future commitment.
No significant difference between SMI and non-SMI teachers emerged for any job satisfaction subscales except responsibility. SMI teachers were less satisfied with their sense of responsibility for teaching than non-SMI teachers. SMI teachers may have diverted some of their time and

背景：香港政府自2000 年開始施實教師「語文能力要求」以及相應的「教師語文能力評估」。在這項政策之下，全港中小學的常額英文和普通話科教師必須在特定時限之前達到相關語文能力要求，否則將不獲准繼續任教英文或普通話科。政府的是項舉措在本港教育界引發了廣泛的爭論。
目的：本研究目的在於調查政府該項措施實施兩年之後，受影響的中學普通話科教師對政府此項舉措的一般意見和態度。
調查對象：本研究的調查對象為香港中學普通話科科主任教師。
調查方法：本研究採用直接問卷的方式進行。以郵寄方法向香港400 間中學的普通話科科主任進行問卷調查，成功收回問卷177 份。
調查結果：結果顯示，普通話科教師一般認為，政府的這項政策對於語文教師的專業發展有其必要；但是，由於政府強力推行是項政策，加重了教師的工作負擔，所以不受教師們的歡迎。
總結：如果想令到政府的這項政策得到語文教師的歡迎，政府必須有相應的措施有效地減輕受影響教師的工作壓力，因為是項政策的實施實際上加重了教師業已十分繁重工作量。
Background: Since 2000 Hong Kong government has pursued a new policy of Language Proficiency Requirement (LPR) and conducted Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers (LPAT). under witch all English/Putonghua teachers holding a permanent post in a public-sector schools or a local private primary/secondary day schools offering the full curriculum will not be allowed to teach English or Putonghua if he or she had not met the required language proficiency level by specific deadlines. This policy triggered off a heated debate from all sides of education circles in Hong Kong.
Aims: This study aims to collect the general opinions and attitudes of Putonghua teachers towards this new government’s policy two year after the policy had been put into practice.
Sample: Questionnaires were sent to 400 secondary schools and total of 177 questionnaires filled in by secondary school Putonghua subject chair teachers were collected.
Method: Questionnaire survey was conducted and the written responses received from the respondents were tabulated.
Results: This study found that the secondary school Putonghua teachers generally disliked the new policy of LPR which had been strongly carried out by the government, although the new policy was accepted as a necessary step for Putonghua teachers' professional development.
Conclusion: To make the new policy favorably received by language teachers, the government needs to do something substantially to lessen the burden of affected teachers, because

The present study is unique in being one of the few conducted with the teacher trainees in Hong Kong to gather and analyze relevant data related to environmental education. In this regards, this study aims to investigate (i) the environmental worldviews, (ii) the environmental dispositions, (iii) the perception on the urgency of major local and global issues, (iv) perception towards various environmental protection issues, (v) various aspects of green behavior, (vi) environmental knowledge and (vii) the related academic background, of the teacher trainees of the Hong Kong Institute of Education. The research method adopted is basically quantitative, in which a set of questionnaire serves as the measuring instrument to access the teacher trainees' environmental attitudes, behavior and knowledge. These findings will provide useful information for curriculum development purposes such as developing relevant and appropriate teaching content, strategies and methods for new and existing environmentally related modules.
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

教育研究以前被認為是大專校教研人員才會參與的工作，一般的前線老師最多只會協助研究的進行，甚少自己計畫做研究。香港教育學院在職普通話教師培訓課程，要求老師做行動研究。本論文的目的是：探討參加該課程的中小學普通話教師對做行動研究的看法，以及他們曾嘗試做行動研究的範疇，藉此讓有意做行動研究的普通話老師得以參考，同時也會看行動研究與普通話老師專業成長的關係。
Educational research has previously been regarded as activity undertaken by both teaching and research members of tertiary institutions. Frontline schoolteachers, rarely conducting research on their own, usually take up the role of an assistant at most. However, the Hong Kong Institute of Education has made it a requirement for participants of the Putonghua Teachers In-service Training Course to conduct action research. The objectives of this article are threefold: (1) to survey course participants' views with regards of conducting action research; (2) to present a profile of the scopes of their action research for the reference of Putonghua-teachers who are interested in conducting such research; and (3) to assess the relationship between action research and professional growth of Putonghua teachers.
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

The objectives of this study were to examine (i) behavioral differences in popularand unpopular children; (ii) the ability of kindergarten teachers to identify children with peer interaction difficulties; and (iii) strategies teachers use to guide appropriate social behaviour in the kindergarten classroom. Forty-eight 4-5 year-olds completed sociometric interview. Eight children including two Popular, two Rejected, two Average and two Controversial were observed during free play. Popular children had good social skills; they were able to initiate and maintain peer contact, communicated clearly and were co-operative. On the other hand, Rejected children were more physically and verbally aggressive with peers and showed low levels of co-operative behaviour. Teachers had some difficulties to identify the social status of children in their class, suggesting that they placed more emphasis on academic development than social development. They did not typically interact with children during free play. However, they occasionally tried to enhance the cognitive complexity of children's play. The implication of these findings for teacher-training are discussed.
本文旨在探究i)幼稚園內受歡迎與被拒絕的兒童之行為差異; ii)幼稚園老師對於辨別兒童與兒童之間難於彼此互動的能力; 及iii)老師在課室引導兒童適當社交行為的策略。 48 位四至五歲的兒童獲邀完成了面談, 而其中8 位兒童被選為觀察對象: 包括了2 位受歡迎的兒童、2 位被拒絕的兒童、 2 位表現平均的兒童和2 位表現較爭議性的兒童。受歡迎的兒童有良好的社交技巧, 他/她們能展開和維持與同伴的接觸、具清楚的溝通能力和表現合作的行為。相反地, 被拒絕的兒童愛用言語和身體攻擊同伴,並有不合作的行為表現。教師對於辨別兒童在課室內之社會地位表示有些困難, 因教師們較著重兒童學術發展多於社交發展。兒童在自由活動的時段內, 教師沒有與兒童互動,但她們也偶然地嘗試提升兒童遊戲的複雜認知能力。有關教師培訓會從結果中顯示出來。
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

Curriculum orientations are beliefs about what a school curriculum should achieve and how teaching, learning and assessment should occur. Five major orientations to design science curricula were identified. They are academic, cognitive processes, society-centred, humanistic, and technological. This article reports the results of a survey on the primary science curriculum orientations of 437 pre-service student-teachers studying 2 primary education programmes. A 41-item questionnaire was developed to measure their beliefs about these five curriculum orientations. Statistical results show that the instrument is reliable and the student-teachers strongly believed in the cognitive-processes orientation, but they generally did not reject the other four orientations. The effects of science background knowledge, teaching practice experiences and the nature of science modules studied were tested. Implications of these findings are discussed.
課程取向是指有關學校課程的目標、教學方法與評估的信念。本文界定了五種有關科學課程的主要取向，它們是學術取向、認知過程取向、社會中心取向、人文取向和科技取向。本文報告一個對小學科學課程取向的調查研究，調查的對像是分別修讀兩個教育課程的437 位職前師訓學員，調查工具是一份有41 項問題的問卷，統計結果顯示工具的信度頗高，而學員最認同認知過程取向，不過他/她們亦不排斥其他四種取向。同時亦測試了有關學員的科學知識背景、教學實習的經驗和曾修讀科學單元的性質等因素可能產生的影響。從以上研究結果所得出的啟示都會在本文作出討論。
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

隨著中小學學位數目供應漸趨穩定，政府在上世紀九十年代提出推行教育質素保證程序。本文回顧了教育質素保證的發展經過，由分科視學到目前的學校發展與問責架構。內文亦從前線教育人員的角度討論質素保證程序的影響和提出一些發展期望。
Following the stable supply of the places for school education, Hong Kong government proposed quality assurance for the education system in the 1990s of the last century. This paper reviews the process of implementing the quality assurance procedures, from subject inspection to the school development and accountability framework. Discussion on the influence of quality assurance and expectation on future development is given, from the point of view of a frontline teacher.
[Copyright of Hong Kong Teachers' Centre Journal is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Centre at http://www.edb.org.hk/hktc]