The main purpose of this study was to investigate the health concepts of preschool teachers. The samples were from 72 in-service teachers and 128 pre-service students, totalling 200 preschool teachers. The data were collected via a self-administered questionnaire survey and a quantitative methodology was employed in the study. The findings indicated that both in-service and pre-service teachers shared similar concerns and attitudes towards health, which tend to be socio-culturally determined. Demographic factors seem to affect the health concepts of preschool teachers. The overall findings provide useful information for health professionals and educators in developing health training materials for preschool teachers.
[Copyright © 2005 Institute of Health Promotion and Education.]

This paper reports the implementation of a project designed to involve in service teachers in peer support for the learning of the core values of personal and social education so as to raise self-esteem, to enhance co-operation, to promote rationality and empathy. Project participants were 27 in-service teachers attending an undergraduate program of the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Project evaluation reveals that the project succeeded in generating for the teacher participants emotional, academic, social, technical, and extended supports, and that the benefits of the project also spilled over to their relationships with their primary school pupils and daily lives. Research and practical implications are discussed.
[Copyright © 2003 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

To what extent and in what ways should a teacher educator contribute to a type of teaching development that has long functioned successfully without much involvement of teacher educators? This self-study concerns my learning about my role as teacher educator in a learning study, a Hong Kong adaptation of a teacher-driven Japanese educational and cultural practice, Jugyou Kenkyu, credited with high quality learning outcomes for both teachers and students. My first learning study case forms the retrospective backdrop to the self-study. By describing and evaluating my personal experience of interactions such as recorded meetings and teachers' reflections, I attempt to discern a function for myself within the group. The self-study helped uncover some misguided assumptions and responses in coping with the new context and also provided some preliminary understandings of possible teacher educator responsibilities in this type of initiative.
[Copyright © 2007 Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business.]

Teacher efficacy has been shown to be an important variable predicting teachers' capacity to contribute to reform efforts. Given the role that future teachers are expected to play in educational reform, this research aimed to measure the teacher efficacy of samples of pre-service teachers in Hong Kong and Macao using the Chinese version of the 12-item Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (C-TSE). A cross-cultural perspective was important because it provided that opportunity to test the robustness of the instrument and to look at broader socio-cultural issues of teacher efficacy in two locations through the use of C-TSE. Sixty-six Hong Kong pre-service teachers and 66 Macao pre-service teachers participated in the study. In general, Hong Kong pre-service teachers were found to be more efficacious than the Macao cohort. However, the factor structures of the scale were not the same for the sub-samples. It is suggested that, on the one hand, programme characteristics and/or local cultures need to be considered when interpreting these results. On the other hand, the full 24-item scale, with more items that envisage and reflect particular classroom tasks and situations, could be useful to explore the dimensionality of pre-service teachers' sense of efficacy. This work contributes to an understanding of issues and problems relating to the measure of Chinese pre-service teachers' efficacy beliefs.
[Copyright © 2006 De La Salle University, Philippines.]

Whilst institute-school partnership have been affirmed as potentially valuable routes for the professional preparations of student teachers (Booth, Furlong & Wilkin, 1990; McCullough & Fidler, 1994), relatively less is known as to how teaching advisers perceive their roles and the impact of their collaborative relationships with student teachers on their own professional lives. This paper attempts to present the voices of four teaching advisers who participated in a mentoring scheme of an initial teacher education program in Hong Kong. Data collected through semi-structured interviews, lesson observations, and post-observation conferences present a general picture of the promises of the scheme as perceived by the teaching advisers in enhancing their own professional development, as well as challenges at the 'action' level. Findings point to the need for re-envisioning the roles and responsibilities of teachers for their own professional development as well as that of others. The paper will conclude with suggestions for fostering an effective and productive learning experience for both student teachers and teaching advisers.
[Copyright © 2004 De La Salle University, Philippines.]

This paper is concerned with a qualitative study of how three pre-service physical education teachers who were comparatively less skilful in sports, socialised professionally in their first field experience. It was a part of the two-year study project investigating the occupational scoialisation of pre-service physical education teachers in the Hong Kong Institute of Education. With the interpretive paradigm as the conceptual framework, data concerning the professional conceptions, socialising strategies and perceptions on their socialising agents during their first field experience were collected through interviewing and writing of reflective journals. The findings demonstrated a particular socialisation process of this type of recruits. Interestingly, they were found shaping their early belief from "being liked by the pupils" to "being proficient in sports skills and instructional competence" as important requirements for PE teaching after the first field experience. The wash out effect of the field experience on the physical education teacher programme was particular significant on them. The findings provide information about how a particular group of recruits socialised professionally in their first field experience. In return, such implications can be facilitated positively in teacher education.
[Copyright © 2002 Department of Physical Education, Hong Kong Baptist University.]

This study considered commonalities and distinctions in early mathematics teaching by comparing six kindergarten and three Primary 1 teachers. Three consecutive lessons on the teaching of addition were videotaped resulting in a total of 27 lessons, with an equal number from lower kindergarten, upper kindergarten and Primary 1 classrooms. Observations focused on the physical environment and teacher behaviours. Time spent in different modes of instruction and types of activities deployed were determined. Notwithstanding differences in the difficulty of the mathematics curriculum, findings indicated that there were few differences across the two pre-primary years. However, pre-primary and primary lessons varied markedly in three domains: physical environment, scheduling of mathematics instruction and approaches to teaching. Compared to primary schools, pre-primary schools were more child-centered in terms of use of the physical set-up, scheduling and teaching approaches. Reasons for these discrepancies are discussed.
[Copyright © 2005 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

This report describes a failed attempt at gender-bias reform among two groups of teacher-trainees of EFL and other subjects in Hong Kong Government schools. The groups are investigated in terms of their demographic background, perceptions of gender-bias in their education, and response to observing gendered classroom interactions. Their classroom observations indicate that urban Asian classroom interactions are gender-biased and that females appear to be both the object and the main perpetrators of such bias. A failed initiative to reform gender-bias reveals such bias to be dynamic, not passive.
[Copyright © 1997 CUHK English Lanuage Teaching Unit.]