Unlike many other places in the world, guidance lessons in Hong Kong are taught mainly by class teachers rather than school counsellors. Given the unique educational context of Hong Kong as East meets West and given that guidance is essentially a concept from the West, it is important to investigate what kind of pedagogy is suitable for teaching guidance in Hong Kong. This paper examines what teaching guidance lessons are like in Hong Kong for the researcher and for some primary teachers. A qualitative case study methodology is used. Data are drawn from the author's own experience in a primary school teaching attachment and interviews with guidance professionals, primary school principals, teachers and students in three selected primary schools in Hong Kong. Pedagogical issues for the teaching guidance curriculum are explored and discussed. The researcher argues for a hybrid guidance pedagogy for the teaching of classroom guidance in Hong Kong. Findings are applicable to countries facing similar issues in parallel mixed cultural settings.
[Copyright of Counselling Psychology Quarterly is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515070500295904]

With a rise in the technology for the production of electronic or digital materials, funders and administrators of libraries are increasingly leaning towards providing digital reading materials to users. In crowded cities like Hong Kong where space is a scarce commodity, the save-space feature of digital libraries is an even more attractive reason why users of library facilities in academic and public libraries are being encouraged to read electronic versions of publications. In this article we show that, however laudable the advantages of electronic books may be over physical print books, user preferences in every situation must be carefully analyzed before a paradigm shift from print to digital library resources can be successfully effected. The data for this paper come mainly from a survey of user preferences among students of the University of Hong Kong, which shows that an overwhelming majority (77%) of the respondents prefers print to digital materials. We conclude that the success or otherwise of the paradigm shift from print to digital libraries would depend on measures taken to encourage a positive attitude of users for digital library resources.
[Copyright of Reading Matrix: An International Online Journal is the property of Bentham open.
Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://www.readingmatrix.com/journal.html]

Students in the Physiotherapy Programme carried out a group project in their final year of studies. The objectives of the project were that the students learn and appreciate the process and activities involved in research, acquire deeper understanding of a topic in their professional interest, learn to work as a team, manage their own time, collaborate with others and produce a meaningful report. In the case of group work, usually the written report is assessed and the same mark is given to all members. Sometimes the supervisors' and group members' assessment of the members' involvement and participation in the project, oral presentation or viva voce contributes a small portion to the final grade of each student. This practice is limited to the assessment of the outcome of the group effort and does not reflect the process of learning by individual members. Portfolio assessment of learning involves the students themselves reflecting on and evaluating their learning and also allows teachers to evaluate individual students' learning in group tasks. In this paper, the implementation of the portfolio assessment, the criteria for the assessment of the portfolios and the students' opinions on the portfolio assessment are discussed.
[Copyright of Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602930601116904]

Interaction and feedback on performance are essential elements of the language learning process. On a distance-learning course, since opportunities for interaction may be limited, feedback plays a crucial role in opening and maintaining a dialogue between tutors and students. Using text analysis, questionnaire and interview data, this study explores both tutor and student perspectives on the feedback offered on a distance language course. It finds that there are considerable individual differences in the feedback offered by tutors and there is also variation in the type of feedback the students want and their reported uses of it. The article suggests that more training for both tutors and students is necessary to adequately exploit feedback's potential in a distance-learning context.
[Copyright of Open Learning is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680510120084959]

This study examines the processes adult students use to integrate part-time study with existing family, work and social commitments. Evidence is drawn from interviews with students in three countries. A causal network is proposed with a positive category where social obligations are accommodated with study demands. The alternative category results in external attribution of the failure to accommodate demands. For each category the three environments of work, family and social lives are examined. Three mechanisms are discussed for facilitating integration, namely support, sacrifice and negotiating arrangements. Negotiating sanctuaries of time or space for study are seen as important. The three mechanisms for accommodating part-time study mean that students with adverse circumstances are not pre-destined to fail and that there is a role for universities in counselling and assisting students in adapting to part-time study.
[Copyright of Studies in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079912331380178]

As a subject in Hong Kong secondary schools, Design & Technology (D&T) is influenced by four factors. First, for many years, the subject of Design & Technology was offered almost exclusively to boys, with girls only being allowed to take Home Economics. Recently however, girls are now having the opportunity to take D&T as a required subject in schools. Second, although some schools have allowed girls to take D&T for several years, some have only just started this practice. As a result, some girls have studied D&T from secondary one to three, while others may only be having their initial experience as a secondary three student. Third, the content and teaching of D&T varies from school to school, and depends on the type of syllabus followed and facilities available. Fourth, not all secondary schools in Hong Kong offer D&T, meaning a large number of both boys and girls have never experienced the subject.
To examine Hong Kong pupils' attitudes toward technology, a Pupils' Attitudes Toward Technology (PATT2-HK) study was conducted with over 2,800 students in 22 secondary schools. This study duplicated the first PATTHK research conducted earlier (Volk & Yip, 1999), and the findings were compared. More specifically, given the immense changes that occurred in just a few short years relating to D&T program availability, facilities, and subject content, this study was undertaken to determine whether or not the proactive measures to ensure that all students have the opportunity to participate in D&T were in fact having a positive impact on pupils' attitudes toward technology. From this PATT2-HK study and examination made of current factors, recommendations as to the impact and future direction of D&T in Hong Kong are made.
[Copyright of Journal of Technology Education is the property of Columbus State University.
Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/]