Novice kindergarten (KG) teachers often encounter various challenges that may prevent them from performing satisfactorily during the transition from school to work. In Hong Kong, this issue has become more salient under the Free Quality Kindergarten Education Scheme which induces heavier workload and higher expectation on teachers’ performance. Self-control is a crucial factor that facilitates individuals’ performance via promoting positive thoughts, emotion, and behavior as well as preventing the negative counterparts. In this research, we examined the hypotheses that novice KG teachers’ pre-existing self-control would predict better subsequent job performance through promoting work engagement and preventing work stress. Students from an early childhood education (ECE) higher diploma program reported their self-control at the final semester of the program. Those working in the ECE classrooms after graduation rated their work engagement and work stress at the end of the first month of the new semester, and those who retained in the job also reported their job performance at the end of the first semester (final N = 117, 96.6% females). The results of mediation model fully supported our hypotheses. These findings suggest that enhancing self-control, improving work engagement and reducing work stress could be promising ways to facilitate novice KG teachers’ job performance during the school-to-work transition period. Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper examines the diverse conceptions and global citizenship (GC) and pedagogic implications for initial teacher education in Hong Kong, an Asian 'global city'. It focuses on the empirical example of the Education University of Hong Kong, the largest provider of teacher education in Hong Kong. Recently, the Education University of Hong Kong has increased more global or transnational character of teacher education through provision of extensive international experiential learning programmes and GC-related courses. The study employed the research methods including (1) documentary research of the GC-related courses and their curriculum framework, (2) professional interviews with instructors of GC-related courses (N=12) and (3) pre-service teachers’ reflections on their learning experiences through in-depth interviews (N=27), supplemented by the survey of the Global Citizenship Scale. The research found that instructors have different objectives in teaching GC in their courses, ranging from cultivating students’ critical thinking (reflecting both positive and negative sides of globalization), to introducing the humanistic dimension of GC (such as tolerating cultural and national differences) and practising GC for progress in Hong Kong society. Students in general showed awareness about global issues and high global competence, with open minds and communication skills to engage in intercultural interaction with people from different countries. The key findings of the study align with the literature that GC encompasses multiple agendas and ideologies, thus makes GC education complex. Lastly, this paper proposes a cohesive framework that democratically captures the varied understandings, discourses and conceptions of GC. Copyright © 2020 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.

Teachers in special education, compared with those in mainstream contexts, encounter more challenging situations in teaching and suffer from lower psychological and emotional well-being. The major research purpose was to test the effects of teacher values, emotions and emotion regulation on their psychological well-being. The current sample included 66 teachers from three special education schools. Results showed that teachers’ intrinsic value, enjoyment, as well as cognitive reappraisal all positively predicted teachers’ life satisfaction, while teacher anger negatively predicted occupational stress. Moving a step further, when teachers’ cognitive reappraisal levels were taken into consideration, teachers who reported high anger but low cognitive reappraisal were found to have significantly lower life satisfaction. Comparatively, higher life satisfaction was found among teachers who reported high cognitive reappraisal. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in relation to research advances in teacher emotions and emotion regulation. Copyright © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Junjun Chen and Ronnel B. King; individual chapters, the contributors.

This chapter focuses on work enjoyment, a typical form of positive emotions, experienced by teacher leaders and examines its influence on their daily workplace creativity beyond the classroom. The chapter also investigates whether quality recovery precedes work enjoyment.Drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives and rich literature from psychology, organizational behavior and education disciplines, a general theoretical model was proposed and tested with Experience Sampling Method (ESM) data collected from teacher leaders in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Cross-lagged path analysis results revealed that work enjoyment creates a critical emotional state bridging personal resources and teacher leaders' creativity. Copyright © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Junjun Chen and Ronnel B. King; individual chapters, the contributors.

Although there is an increasing body of studies on assessing teacher emotions in mainstream education, there is a lack of appropriate measurement tools to assess the emotions of special school teachers. This study tested the generalizability of the 26-item Teacher Emotion Inventory (TEI) among 66 teachers from three special schools in Hong Kong using Rasch modeling. A range of key indicators (e.g., unidimensionality, item fit, person ability and item difficulty match) were tested. The results showed that the TEI for special education teachers (S-TEI) had generally acceptable psychometric properties. The S-TEI seems to be a valid tool to assess the emotions of special school teachers. Copyright © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Junjun Chen and Ronnel B. King; individual chapters, the contributors.

自2001年起，香港特別行政區政府推出一系列大型課程改革，至今已近二十年。現在正是適切時間檢討，以尋找未來的改革方向。校長和教師是重要的持份者，他們同時掌握具體的前線情況，因此了解他們對課程改革現狀及未來發展的看法非常重要。本研究採用聚焦訪談及問卷調查方法，收集了超過1,000名教師和校長的觀感及看法。研究發現，課程改革帶來了教學法、學校自評文化和觀課文化的改變，但未能全面達致改革的大部分目標。改革亦帶來了一系列問題，例如教師工作量增加和學習差異擴闊等。如要為將來尋找更好的發展方向和策略，教育當局必須進行更全面、更有系統及深入的研究，而本研究展示的數據和理據可作這全面檢討的起點。Copyright © 香港中文大學. 香港教育研究所.

本文基於對香港教育大學音樂教師教育專業人才培養計劃的文本分析, 總結出其培養目標具有高度概括性與邏輯性; 課程設置具有課程結構合理, 課程體系全面、課程高度支撐培養目標的達成的特點。同時探討了內地音樂教師教育人才培養可從中汲取啟示, 貫徹成果導向教育、重視音樂教育實習、培養復合型音樂教育人才。

音樂教師教育是培養音樂教育人才的重要途徑, 本文以香港教育大學和湖南師範大學為例, 圍繞課程定位、課程內容、課程安排三個方面介紹了兩校的課程設置, 並分析比較了香港與內地音樂教師教育專業課程設置的異同, 以期充分借鑒香港的先進做法, 為我國內地音樂教師教育專業課程設置提供參考。

Much research has been conducted to investigate the impact of work environment on academics’ job satisfaction. However, little is known about what contributes to academics’ job dissatisfaction. Job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are two distinct entities because a lack of job satisfaction cannot be simply equated with job dissatisfaction. This research investigated the mediating role of academic self-efficacy in the relationship between perceived work environment and job dissatisfaction. Participants were 547 academics from the 8 University Grants Committee-funded higher educational institutions in Hong Kong. Results show that academics’ perceptions of their work environment (including their perceptions of institutional expectations regarding research, university governance and management, and working conditions) statistically predicted job dissatisfaction both directly and indirectly through academic self-efficacy in research and teaching, irrespective of age, gender, academic rank, institutional ranking, and primary academic discipline. The findings enrich the literature concerning perceived work environment, academic self-efficacy, and job dissatisfaction. At the same time, they establish a meaningful link among the fields of psychology, higher education, and career development and have practical implications for academics and university senior managers and, most likely, for senior leaders in other occupations. Copyright ©American Psychological Association.