The perceptions and beliefs about study strategies of Hong Kong university students in a self-access language centre were examined in this study. Twenty undergraduate students at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University were the main study participants. These students were interviewed in the investigation of how their perceptions and beliefs influenced their study strategies. Data were analysed using a qualitative approach. The emergent themes derived from the data show the study strategies employed by the students as in their different grouping orientations (individual learners versus group learners), their use of materials and tutor support. The findings give evidence that the majority of the students had a preference for group-learning activities. The results also show that group learners took the initiative in accessing tutor support while individual learners seemed reluctant. Interestingly, individual learners tended to use more materials, which perhaps reflects that they were more comfortable in using material support in substitution for peer/tutor support. Findings indicate a need to provide students with a learner-training programme so they can have a knowledge-base related to their self-access study. Providing such training may require more self-access trained tutors to better cater for the needs of students. There is also a need to change the physical design of a self-access centre, which is originally designed for individual-based learning, to better cater for both individual learning and group learning needs. Also, the notion of study strategies in the self-access contexts needs to be further explored.

The universities in Hong Kong have attracted large numbers of Mainland Research Postgraduates (MRPs) in the last ten years but little research has focused on their adaptation. Such a study is of value as MRPs have special features of being both graduate students and adapting to a sibling cultural environment, which are comparatively less investigated in previous research. Based on college impact theories, which propose that academic integration and social integration are the major predictors of student persistence and satisfaction, this study modified Tinto's (1993) model for the study of MRPs' adaptation to the universities of Hong Kong. Unlike most previous research that emphasized either institutional factors or cultural factors of student adaptation, this research enhanced Tinto's model with a new cultural element: interaction with Hong Kong culture and people. Persistence intention as well as satisfaction were utilised as indicators of MRPs' adaptation. Satisfaction, in particular, was also hypothesised as a mediating factor for persistence intention. Two quantitative and one qualitative studies were conducted. 103 MRPs from the University of Hong Kong participated in the first study, which aimed at validating instruments and exploring the pattern of correlations between the major variables involved. 222 MRPs from four universities of Hong Kong participated in the second study designed to test the model.
Another 24 and 3 MRPs participated in the focus-group discussions and follow-up interviews respectively in the third study designed for triangulation and a further understanding of MRPs' adaptation. The results generally supported the fit of the model with the data. They showed that the sibling cultural setting and the presence of large numbers of Mainland fellow peers in the universities of Hong Kong provided a culturally grounded environment for the MRPs but difficulties relating to cultural differences such as problems with language and in interactions with

The arrival of new immigrants from Mainland China has been perceived as a social problem in Hong Kong in recent years. Many of these arrivals are school-age children who may have been brought up in a different culture and who come to Hong Kong for family reunion. This study sets out to explore the different adaptation pathways that the new arrival students have gone through, and to explain these students' academic success and failure.
A review of the recent literature on new arrival children suggests that their pre-arrival background and their post-arrival experiences have a significant impact on their adaptation pathways as well as school performance in Hong Kong. In other words, the new arrival students should not be treated as a homogeneous group seeking assimilation into the host society. The present study hence attempts to throw light on the new arrival students' individual post-arrival experiences, especially their experiences and performance at school, through in-depth interviews with fourteen students over an eleven- month period starting from December 2000.
Using social capital and cultural capital as the key analytic concepts, this study looks for explanations of divergent adaptation pathways and differential school performance. The findings show that supportive networks with the institutional agents is necessary for the new arrival students to activate the capital they possess, and to accumulate further capital for assimilating or accommodating to the society and culture of Hong Kong. By examining the process of adaptation in terms of activation and accumulation of capitals, this study attempts to shed light on the usefulness of cultural ecological theory in immigrant minority education studies. A typology of adaptation, namely "Transitional Adaptation", "Instrumental Adaptation", "Accommodative Adaptation", "Bicultural Adaptation" and "Marginality" is constructed to delineate the different pathways and capture the divergent experiences the new arrival