A Chinese translation of the Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS), a quantitative instrument employed mainly in Western higher education contexts for collecting students' feedback on their learning patterns (in the form of students' processing strategies, regulation strategies, learning orientations and conceptions of learning), was adapted and validated for application in the new response-context of Hong Kong post-secondary education via a large student sample. The reliabilities of the adapted ILS scales, as reflected by Cronbach's coefficient alphas, were found to be generally satisfactory. From an exploratory factor analysis conducted on the adapted ILS scales, four factors were identified that resemble the relevant features of the factor structure reported in a study in an Indonesian response-context. Overall, the present study provides qualified support for the reliability and validity of the adapted ILS for application in the context of Hong Kong post-secondary education.
[Copyright of Quality in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13538322.2010.506717]

This study is concerned with the attribution of secondary students. Causal interpretations for academic success and failure were analysed to investigate the effect of gender, year level and achievement level on students' academic attributions in Hong Kong, a Confucian Heritage Culture. The sample for the study comprised 14,846 students currently enrolled in Secondary 1 to Secondary 6 in Hong Kong. Multivariate analyses of variance found significant gender differences in ascriptions to ability, effort and strategy use reasons for school performance of students who shared a common cultural background. These effects remained after controlling for achievement and year levels. Chinese females in this sample were more inclined than Chinese males to explain their academic failure in terms of their lack of ability and strategy use. Females were also more likely to explain their academic success in terms of their effort or strategy use. Nevertheless, the study found secondary students of both genders and across all achievement and year levels, consistently ascribed to effort as the most important reason for academic outcomes. Secondary 4 students were significantly more inclined than students of lower levels to attribute their academic outcomes to effort and strategy use. Cultural influences are discussed in interpreting the findings.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2010.518596]

This article presents some findings of a small-scale research study carried out in 1 kindergarten in Hong Kong. The study looked at the problems associated with the transition of families from one culture (mainland China) to a new culture (Hong Kong), concentrating on the children's development of a sense of belonging in Hong Kong. Specific issues that children may face were identified. The study also suggests some strategies for early childhood teachers to use when implementing a play-based curriculum that gives immigrant children opportunities to express their emotions through play. The study found that a sense of belonging can be enhanced if teachers understand the difficulties inherent in cultural transition and respond accordingly.
[Copyright of Diaspora Indigenous and Minority Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15595691003635864]

This article examines how Hong Kong secondary school teachers define caring and the strategies they adopt for behaviour management. The influence of Taoism, emerging as a theme from the data, was prominent, as its principles were incorporated into the teachers' knowledge of caring. The findings illuminate the influence of Taoism in local schools. Implications for the promotion of culturally responsive programmes of caring are drawn.
[Copyright of British Educational Research Journal is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01411920903018158]

The present study explored motivation and engagement among Chinese and Australian school students. Based on a sample of 528 Hong Kong Chinese 12-13 year olds and an archive sample of 6,366 Australian 12-13 year olds, achievement motivation was assessed using the Motivation and Engagement Scale-High School (MES-HS). Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling using LISREL found that, across Chinese and Australian students, there was similar factor structure, reliability, correlations with educational outcomes, and gender and age effects—suggesting there are no fundamental differences of kind between the two cultures. There were, however, differences of degree in that Australian students reported significantly higher levels of adaptive achievement motivation and significantly lower levels of maladaptive achievement motivation. It is concluded that although Australian students have higher levels of reported achievement motivation than Chinese students on a number of dimensions, the two groups' fundamental orientation does not appear to be markedly different in terms of motivation structure, profile, and relationships. This holds implications for cross-cultural motivation assessment, data analysis, and programmatic intervention aimed at enhancing (and sustaining) students' achievement motivation in different cultural and national contexts.
[Copyright of International Journal of Testing is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15305058.2010.482220]

This article reports on the results of a questionnaire and interview survey on Cantonese ESL learners' preference for bilingualised dictionaries or monolingual dictionaries. The questionnaire survey was implemented with about 160 university English majors in Hong Kong and three focus group interviews were conducted with 14 of these participants. The results of the study showed that learners' own perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of the two types of dictionaries were largely in line with previous research findings, but some learners had mistaken beliefs about bilingualised dictionaries, especially about the alleged lack of definitions and usage information. Misconceptions such as these could be dispelled by ESL teachers who, by designing programmes which incorporate the use of bilingualised dictionaries, alert their learners to the bank of information such dictionaries can provide. Editors of bilingualised dictionaries could also adopt more eye-catching special features or highlighting techniques to attract users' attention to the usage information included. When encountering difficulties, learners should be encouraged to use both types of dictionaries.
[Copyright of Language, Culture and Curriculum is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2010.510196]

This paper is a situated biographical reflection on the author's Hong Kong teaching experience written using a narrative inquiry approach, describing attempts to generate innovative pedagogical practices. The journey explores how autocratic, traditional Chinese cultural expectations in Hong Kong education have nurtured a commonsense belief in "discipline first and then teach". This teacher/researcher adopted alternative approaches to authority through the use of developmental drama which made teacher image and teacher-student power relationships an object of talk and study. The aim of this paper is to bring together theories and pedagogical models based on the sociology of education, social psychology and drama pedagogy in an effort to change how we teach marginalized students in one distinctive Chinese cultural context.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188790903503627]

Many Hong Kong schools are concerned about the growing number of ethnic minority students. How they are supported and how the diversity of their pastoral needs is fulfilled become critical. This article examines teachers', students' and parents' narratives of the cross-cultural experience of ethnic minority students from India, Pakistan, Philippines, Nepal and Thailand, and the diversity of those students' pastoral needs. The qualitative data were collected from interviews, through which the constructs of 32 teachers and 32 students from three secondary schools were explored. Four groups of focus-group interviews were conducted, in which 15 parents were involved. This article argues that to implement the ethos of caring, it is not only necessary for the school to promote the intercultural sensitivity of all practitioners, but equally important to develop a connected school system where ethnic minority students and parents can be consistently supported in the subsystems of classroom, school and home.
[Copyright of Educational Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03055690903425383]