This study aims to report on the psychometric properties of SCALE, a newly developed assessment instrument, that is based on the central curriculum for students with intellectual disabilities, using Rasch Analysis. Results indicated that the SCALE could classify students into at least 13 levels of abilities, and that the range of item difficulty was capable of stratifying students’ abilities into 8 to 11 attainment levels. The Rasch statistics demonstrated that the assessment results using SCALE had a high degree of validity and reliability. Its uni-dimensionality as an instrument to measure the attainment levels of the four Key Learning Areas in the central curriculum was also supported. Results from the Rasch Analysis showed that the SCALE measure is a well-validated instrument in identifying the differential levels of attainment. Based on the SCALE data, teachers can design learning materials and activities to match the performance levels of individual students. In addition, the use of the SCALE attainment descriptors to differentiate students’ attainment levels would enable teachers in schools to document progress of their students within an academic year. Subsequently, this enables them to reflect on their teaching effectiveness and make adjustments for the following year. 本研究旨在報告「融通學習成效量表」(SCALE)的心理測量數據特性。「融通學習成效量表」(SCALE)是為連接特殊學校與主流學校課程而研發出來的一項嶄新的評估工具。研究採用等級量尺模式分析法 (Rasch Analysis)‧結果顯示SCALE能把學生的學習能力表現至少可分13個不同程度;且其項目難度也能將學生能力分為8至11個學習能力表現水平級別。從統計數據顯示出SCALE擁有極高信效度。單一構念向度方面的數據亦顯示出SCALE能辨別出有特殊教育需要的學生於四個主要學習領域的學習能力表現之差異。故此,老師能使用SCALE的評估結果,去設計適合個別學生能力的教材及活動。此外,SCALE中的學生學習能力表現指標,亦能讓老師根據SCALE評估結果所提供的實證來衡量學生於每一學年間的學習進度,從而反思自己的教學效能,並在下一個學年為學生的教學作相應的調整。
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The concept of “Assessment-of-Learning” (AoL) has long been the tradition in most school assessment practices in Hong Kong. In view of the deficiencies in the assessment mechanism, the Education Commission (2000) recommended “Assessment-for-Learning” (AfL) as one of the major areas of action in the current education reform. This paper reports the outcomes of a research study designed to investigate the practice of assessment for learning by Hong Kong teachers. The project was a collaborative one, involving the School Development and Evaluation Team (SDET) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and teachers from 20 kindergartens. In the project, central seminars, workshops and meetings were provided to the participating schools for the purpose of enhancing teachers’ Assessment for Learning (A fL) competency in their daily teaching. A questionnaire of 60 items was administered twice to teachers from the participating kindergartens at the beginning as well as towards the end of the project in order to assess their uses of the nine AfL strategies, namely, informing teaching objectives, informing success criteria, effective questioning, quality feedback, self-assessment, peer assessment, collecting learning evidence and teacher reflections in their daily teaching. Results indicate that there is a remarkable improvement regarding teachers’ habits in utilizing AfL strategies after the intervention. This research has pioneered a quantitative study of the practice of AfL in kindergartens and has validated an instrument for assessing such a practice. The framework, the instrument, the findings and insights generated from the study may have significant contributions to the improvement of classroom teaching in kindergartens. Copyright © 2014 ICSEI.

This paper reports the outcomes of a 2-year research project designed to investigate the practice of assessment for learning by Hong Kong teachers. The project was a collaborative one, involving the School Development and Evaluation Team (SDET) of The Chinese University of Hong Kong and teachers from 10 kindergartens and 10 primary schools. In the project, training programmes, workshops and meetings were provided to the participating schools for the purpose of enhancing teachers’ Assessment for Learning (AfL) competency in their daily teaching. A questionnaire was administered twice to all teachers in the project schools at the beginning as well as towards the end of the project to tap any improvement regarding teachers’ habits in utilizing AfL strategies in their classrooms. Results indicate that there is a remarkable improvement regarding teachers’ habits in utilizing AfL strategies during the study. It is recommended that more professional development programmes and school support for teachers should be provided for enhancing teachers’ AfL literacy in their daily teaching. Copyright © 2011 Hong Kong Educational Research Association.

The current paper examined the effects of A Balanced Reading Approach for Children Always Designed to Achieve Best Results for All (ABRA), a web-based literacy programme developed by the the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (CSLP) at Concordia University, on primary school children in Hong Kong. The participants were 249 Primary 1 students from two low social economic status schools in Hong Kong and the two schools were well-matched on many demographic characteristics. All participating students were pre-tested in the fall and post-tested in the following spring. After adjusting for pretest differences, the treatment school scored significantly higher than the controls on three of the six outcome measures at post-tests: phoneme-grapheme correspondence (ES = +0.22, p < 0.05), phoneme segmentation (ES = +0.46, p < 0.00), and nonsense word fluency (ES = +0.22, p < 0.06). Both treatment and control students scored similarly on word reading, listening comprehension, and initial sound fluency. The outcomes of the study provides some promising evidence of the effects of ABRA on Chinese primary students in Hong Kong, especially on the enhancement of phonological skills, thus leading to early success in the formative years of learning English as a Second Language (ESL). Practical implications are discussed.
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The purposes of this study were to examine the Hong Kong 5th and 6th graders' performance on the number sense three-tier test, the differences between 5th and 6th graders, and possible misconceptions. The number sense three-tier test included a content-tier which assesses content knowledge of number sense; a reason-tier, which assesses a reason selected for the first-tier response; and the confidence-tier, which assesses how confident the students are in their answers to the first two-tiers. A total of 125 fifth graders and 942 sixth graders from Hong Kong joined the test. A quantitative method was used to analyze the data and the data was collected through the on-line test. Data showed that the correct percentage (confidence index) on the first two-tiers (content-tier and reason-tier) for fifth and sixth graders are 56.6% (4.49) and 54.0% (4.27), respectively. The fifth and sixth graders all performed the best on “Being able to recognize the number size” and the worst on “Being able to judge the reasonableness of a computational result”. Results showed that part of students performed poor on number sense but with extreme high confidence indicating that they have significant misconceptions and some students may lack number sense. The finding of this study also confirmed that a number sense three-tier test can be used to mitigate the weakness of a two-tier test. Educational implications of the findings will be discussed.

One of the key aims of formative assessment in higher education is to enable students to become self-regulated learners (Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006). Based on Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick's (2006) framework, this exploratory study investigates which formative assessment practices proposed by them were used by one college EFL writing teacher to facilitate learner self-regulation in a Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) setting (i.e. Hong Kong) and student perceptions of these practices in relation to self-regulation. Five formative assessment practices were found to be implemented by the teacher to support learner self-regulation. The students seemed to be more positive about teacher-and-student-directed practices than student-directed ones. Suggestions have been provided to maximize the potential of these practices in facilitating learner self-regulation.