A survey study was conducted to examine the relationship among achievement goal orientations, study strategies and achievement of a sample of teacher education students in Hong Kong. Multivariate data analyses showed there was no significant difference in achievement goal orientations across discipline and programme groups but there was a significant difference in achievement goals between male and female students. The difference was found in performance goal. Analysis of the study strategies showed no significant difference across gender, discipline and programme groups. Correlational and path analysis shown learning goal was significantly and positively related to deep strategy but negatively and significantly related to surface strategy. Performance goal was significantly related to both surface and deep strategies. However, academic achievement was not significantly related to learning and performance goals or surface and deep strategies. The results were discussed in terms of socio-cultural factors and implications were drawn for teaching and learning as well as future directions of research.
[Copyright © 2005 De La Salle University, Philippines.]

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 reports an investigation of the job satisfaction of teachers of severely mentally handicapped (smh) schools in Hong Kong. Responses to a modified version of the Job Description Index (JDI) are shown to be internally consistent and evidence is presented of the convergent and discriminant validity of the JDI scales. The teachers of the smh students were shown to be content with aspects of their job other than promotion opportunities, more so than representative samples of Hong Kong primary, secondary, and moderate grade mentally handicapped school teachers and psychiatric nurses. The JDI scales showed some power to predict intention to leave their current job.
[Copyright © 2000 De La Salle University, Philippines.]