The hegemonic wave of neoliberalism in higher education does not eradicate academic freedom in universities one by one. The possibility of resistance necessarily exists within the configuration of contemporary power relations. This study contributes to the theoretical debate on how global neoliberal forces are reproduced with local characteristics by providing a Hong Kong case. Based on interviews with 15 academics, their reactions and responses to a specific research evaluation system in Hong Kong, namely the Research Assessment Exercise 2020, are examined. The findings suggest that academic freedom has survived by adopting different forms of ‘masked resistance’ in the highly performative culture of Hong Kong academia. Such masked acts of resistance include ‘criticisms behind the curtain of conformity’, ‘scepticism and feigned compliance’, ‘cautious acceptance with substantial reservations’, ‘no reaction as an expression of muted dissatisfaction’, and ‘defence without rupture’. The ‘specificity’ of such inconsistent, ambivalent and nuanced responses is discussed by drawing on several local contextual factors: the political–educational culture, the government–institution relationship, and the disciplinary knowledge tradition. This study calls for greater flexibility in assessment regimes to make room for academics’ professional autonomy, which in essence enables, rather than dismantles, accountability in managerial reforms. © International Association of Universities 2021.

This study examines how new ways of learning (NWL) affects students’ study engagement and learning satisfaction with online teaching, and whether subject lecturer support moderates the effect of NWL and study engagement on learning satisfaction. Undergraduate students in Hong Kong were invited to complete a survey about their experience of online teaching. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that NWL were positively related to study engagement and learning satisfaction. Subject lecturer support moderated the relationship between NWL and study engagement, which mediated their interactive effect on learning satisfaction. The results imply that academic institutions can transform traditional face-to-face teaching into online teaching that achieves learning satisfaction for students. © 2023 The Author(s).

Schools have been considered crucial social contexts for character formation. Hong Kong’s recent education policy has put moral and character education on the agenda of early childhood education (ECE); it states that moral and character education should be integrated into the major kindergarten subjects. However, questions remain on how it should be integrated into the ECE subject areas. Music has been officially identified as part of kindergartens’ daily activities. Scholarship has established the inextricable interconnection between character development and music participation. This study aims to explore subject-based implementation of the moral education through the lens of musical instructions. Literature confirms school leaders’ impact on shaping the implementation of policy, hence, school leaders’ perceptions and challenges regarding the implementation of this newly emphasized policy was explored through semi-structured interviews with 12 purposively selected principals. The results reveal that the principals valued using music education to teach children about morals and ethics, but found that they faced hurdles in the implementation, e.g. teachers’ insufficient pedagogical content knowledge and parents’ attitude. This study identifies traditionalism as the most prevailing view in kindergarten principals’ conceptualizations of moral education. Musical activities for moral education that principals support are play-based but adult-guided. © 2023 The Author(s).

This article reports a case study of an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher in Hong Kong who conducted lessons via Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focused on the factors influencing her technology integration in synchronous online teaching mode. Using data from classroom recordings, stimulated-recall and semi-structured interviews, this study uncovered how Zoom functioned as a substitute for face-to-face lessons. The findings revealed that although there were fewer interactions between the teacher and her students, teaching in synchronous online mode provided the teacher with opportunities to utilize certain online features to augment methods of checking student understanding. The study identified the teacher’s pedagogical beliefs, the context and professional development as factors that influenced the level of technology integration in her Zoom classes. The study concludes that embracing process-oriented pedagogies may be necessary for a higher level of technology integration among ESL teachers who have adequate professional development opportunities and school support. © The Author(s) 2021.

The COVID-19 pandemic has instigated considerable unprecedented challenges to tertiary education in the aftermath of the mass shutdown of universities across Hong Kong since early 2020. Accordingly, shifting the traditional modalities to the online model has been opted for as the only reasonable alternative in the breakout period. It is, then, essential for educators to perceive the extent to which students’ learning attainments and experiences have been negatively impacted by these educational changes in the post-pandemic era. With the aim of examining the abrupt changes which the freshmen students’ e-learning experiences and their learning environment have undergone before and after the pandemic, the present quantitative study was conducted at a Liberal Arts Institution in Hong Kong, whose data was collected via the web-based questionnaire FYSLES, or “first-year student learning experience survey”. Quantitative analysis of responses indicated that students’ impressions and experience of liberal arts education, and students’ personalities and skills development, presented a U-shaped trend during the COVID-19 pandemic. The underlying rationale of this study is addressed to higher education policymakers to orient and add value to their safety measures, pertinent recommendations, as well as in context strategies that could be established in view of the pandemic’s detrimental effects. © 2023 by the authors.

Background The existing literature has predominantly focused on instructor social presence in videos in an asynchronous learning environment and little is known about student social presence on webcam in online learning in the context of COVID‐19. Objectives This paper therefore contrasts students' and teachers' perspectives on student social presence on webcam in synchronous online teaching through co‐orientation analysis. Methods Data were collected through an online questionnaire with 14 statements that measured participants' perceptions of webcam use in three constructs in social presence (i.e., emotional expression, open communication, and cohesion). 154 students and 36 teachers from two higher education institutions in Hong Kong responded to the questionnaire, and their responses were analysed using the co‐orientation model. Results and conclusion Results reveal the perceptual gaps between teachers and students on the use of webcam to promote student social presence by showing how teachers were comparatively more positive about its impacts for learning and consistently overestimated students' preference for it. Through analysing individual constructs/items, this paper argues that using webcams in synchronous online learning could enhance student social presence only to a limited extent in that it may help improve emotional expression and open communication but not cohesion. Implications The paper advises against the adoption of a clear‐cut policy that webcams should be either recommended or not recommended for online learning. Instead, teachers should take into account students' perspective to find out the types of activities that are apt for using webcams in online learning, and reflective tasks and oral assessments were amongst the ones considered appropriate by students in the study. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Due to the challenging nature of teaching and learning in the 21st century, educators must assume additional roles in schools to meet the expectations of students, parents, and communities. Studies in general have focused on all teachers as a group. The PISA 2015 assessment and analysis framework indicates that the focus of the current round of assessment is on science literacy. Therefore, science teacher professional collaboration, teaching self-efficacy, and teacher job satisfaction were also the focus of its measurement. In this study, 1039 science teachers from Hong Kong participated. Through literature review analysis, this study concluded that (a) teacher professional collaboration and teaching self-efficacy have a positive effect on job satisfaction; (b) teacher professional collaboration has a positive effect on teaching self-efficacy, and (c) teaching self-efficacy has a mediating role in teacher professional collaboration and teacher job satisfaction. A mediation model was developed to test this hypothesis. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results of the study confirmed our hypothesis. In addition, we examined the applicability of the model using multi-group SEM mode, and the results demonstrated that the effect of professional collaboration on job satisfaction among science teachers in Hong Kong, China did not differ by gender. © 2023 by the authors.

College transfer students are those who follow a different trajectory in their higher education journeys than traditional students, completing a sub-degree before pursuing a bachelor’s degree at a university. While the possibility of transferring makes higher education accessible to these students, previous studies have found that they face various challenges, from issues with course load to language challenges. This study aims to examine (1) the critical factors contributing to the success of transfer students in a language course; and (2) how transfer students perform better or worse than those who enter university directly. This study conducted learning analytics with 700 college transfer students in Hong Kong, retrieving their demographic and learning data from the learning management system and the university academic registry. The results suggest that English exam scores, current semester GPA, graduating GPA at community college and current course load are important predictors of transfer students’ success in language courses. This study also finds that transfer students have lower levels of language proficiency than direct entrants. It concludes with specific recommendations to make higher education more accessible to transfer students and suggestions on how to use learning analytics to track students with different trajectories. © The Author(s) 2023.

In this editorial, we discuss the affordances and challenges of emerging technologies in designing and implementing STEM education as a planned theme of this special issue. We view that emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality, have a double-edged sword effect on STEM learning and teaching. Exploring the effect will help provide a balanced view that simultaneously recognizes the benefits and pitfalls of the technologies and avoids overstating either one. This themed issue highlights how immersive and AI-driven learning environments advance and transform STEM education in different contexts. It consists of this editorial, three research reviews, and two empirical research articles contributed by scholars from five different regions, including Australia, Hong Kong, mainland China, Singapore, and the USA. They discussed the educational, social, and technological effects of emerging technologies. Each article discusses to various extent about the current research status, what and how the technologies can afford, and what concerns the technologies may bring to STEM education. © The Author(s), 2023.

Awareness of culturally diverse young people’s rights and needs to sexuality education has been raised internationally. However, existing literature has generally focused more on how culturally diverse young people navigate western mainstream societies, leaving the Asian context underexamined. This paper explores the experiences and views of South Asian minority youth of sexuality education at home and in school in Hong Kong, informed by rights-based and cultural competence perspectives of sexuality education, and using a qualitative descriptive methodology. The findings identified four themes: (1) the double silence experienced at home and school; (2) marriage within the same religion and caste; (3) gender role expectations to be caring women and protective men, and (4) the need for culturally targeted sexuality education. This paper contributes to scholarship on sexuality education by advancing the knowledge base by means of a case study conducted in Hong Kong, an Asian multicultural context that differs from western multicultural societies. It elucidates the meaning of cultural sensitivity and cultural competence by stressing the negotiability of cultural norms and taboos and identifying the practical implications for conducting sexuality education in a multicultural city like Hong Kong. © 2022 Informa UK Limited.