In Hong Kong, the Education Bureau stipulates in the curriculum document that schools should enrich English language learning and teaching through incorporating moral and civic education, and use of information technology for interactive learning. To prepare preservice teachers to meet these pressing demands, an experiential learning project was conducted to engage student teachers outside the formal curriculum to produce a series of digital stories that stress values education for primary school children. A total of 11 bachelor of education students and MATESOL students joined the project, in which they collaboratively developed 12 digital stories using online tools, such as Book Creator and Canva. Interactive learning activities were designed to accompany the digital stories to facilitate school learners to develop positive values and good character, including respect, responsibility, confidence building, problem solving, sportsmanship, friendship, caring, helpfulness, compassion, civic sense and service to others. Various evaluation methods were used to gauge the usefulness of the experiential learning project. These encompass school trials, post-lesson evaluation, student teachers’ self-reflections and interviews. The findings indicate that the experiential learning process not only enabled the participating student teachers to enrich their pedagogical knowledge and skills but also provided opportunities to enhance various generic skills, such as creativity and critical thinking. Evidence shows that experiential learning plays a valuable role in equipping student teachers with the necessary skills for the challenges in their future teaching careers. Copyright © 2023 ECLL.

This study examined the direct and indirect relationships between playfulness (social and cognitive spontaneity), executive functions, convergent thinking, divergent thinking, and academic skills in Hong Kong Chinese kindergarten children. Participants were 181 second-year (4 to 5 years) kindergarten children (45.9% boys) and their parents. Parents reported demographic information and children's playfulness and executive functions through a questionnaire. Children were administered behavioral assessments of convergent thinking, divergent thinking, Chinese word reading, and number word comparison at their kindergarten. Results from a path analytic model revealed the mediating roles of convergent and divergent thinking in the relationship between playfulness and number word comparison. In contrast, convergent thinking mediated the link between playfulness and Chinese word reading. Executive functions were positively related to playfulness but unrelated to children's academic skills. The findings suggest that playful children might develop better creative thinking processes, supporting their academic skills. Practically, the findings underscore the importance of play-based learning in developing children's creativity and academic skills in the early years. Copyright © 2024 The Author(s).

This study examined the interrelationships among parental play belief, household playfulness, kindergarten play behaviors, and social competence in a sample of Hong Kong Chinese children. Participants were teachers and parents of 140 children (52.1% boys, mean age = 4.35). Parents reported their parental play belief and their child’s playfulness through a questionnaire, while teachers reported children’s kindergarten play behaviors and social competence. Multiple regressions and path analytic model revealed that children’s kindergarten social play, rough play, and reticent behaviors were correlates of their social competence; and that children’s social spontaneity, social play, and reticent behaviors act as potential mediators underlying the relationship between parental play belief and social competence. These findings suggest that parents holding positive play belief may promote their child’s social competence by shaping children’s household playfulness and kindergarten play behaviors. They also highlight the utility of promoting parental play belief, children’s social spontaneity, and kindergarten social play. Copyright © 2024 The Author(s).

This longitudinal study examined the interactive effects of individual- and classroom-level teacher−child relationships on developing externalizing, internalizing, and prosocial behaviors in kindergarten children over time. On two occasions separated by about 1 year, data were collected from 473 kindergarten children (52% boys, Mage = 4.36 years) and their class teachers and mothers in Hong Kong, China. Class teachers reported the closeness and conflict in their relationships with each participating child of their class at Time 1, and mothers reported the child’s externalizing, internalizing, and prosocial behaviors at Times 1 and 2. Results indicated that controlling for child age, gender, grade, maternal education, and prior levels of child adjustment, individual-level teacher−child closeness was negatively associated with internalizing behaviors, and individual-level teacher−child conflict was positively associated with child externalizing behaviors over time. Classroom-level teacher−child closeness and conflict emerged as moderators. The longitudinal association between individual-level teacher−child closeness and externalizing behaviors was negative in low-closeness classrooms but not in high-closeness classrooms. However, the longitudinal association between individual-level teacher−child conflict and child prosocial behaviors was negative in low-conflict classrooms but not in high-conflict classrooms. Despite the statistical significance of the cross-level interaction effects, they were of small effect sizes and explained only very small amounts of variance. Theoretically, our findings demonstrated the interplay of the individual- and classroom-level teacher−child relationships in shaping children’s psychosocial adjustment over time. Practically, our findings highlighted the importance of enhancing teachers’ awareness of the affective quality of their relationships with children at both classroom and individual levels, which could potentially impede or promote

School-based programs are recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote mental health for young people. However the effectiveness of such programs varies, and there are multi-level challenges to embedding mental health education in schools. Further, critical scholarship has focused on the ways in which such programs can contribute to neoliberal goals, rather than empowering students meaningfully. Our research used focus group interviews to capture the perspectives and experiences of teachers and children participating in a school-based program in Hong Kong. We applied Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic practices to analyze the interview data, in particular the concepts of boundaries and framing. We identified rigid boundaries between classrooms, the wider school, and home. Boundaries between academic and wider learning, and between school leaders and teachers, hindered cultural change towards mental wellbeing in schools. The program in this study reduced boundaries between students, and between students and teachers. This enhanced students’ communication, and bonding with peers and teachers. School culture about mental health education was found to have weak framing, with students having more influence on the learning process in this program than they currently do in other subjects. We argue that understanding boundaries and framing underpins development of better pedagogic practices in mental health education. When rooted in careful analysis of power relationships with school cultures, mental health promotion is not necessarily aligned with dominant values in society that privilege academic success over wellbeing. School-based programs can provide co-learning spaces for teachers and students, that encourage learning about mental health. © 2023 Informa UK Limited.

The present study investigated how students' attitudes toward bullying were influenced simultaneously by personal and contextual factors in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taipei. Participants included 25,338 students (15-year-olds, from grade 7 to 12) and 663 schools from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taipei drawn from the Program for International Student Assessment 2018. Multilevel structural equation modeling with Bayesian estimation was conducted for data analysis. The results showed that, for personal factors, girls had stronger anti-bullying attitudes than boys in each sample. Resilience and self-efficacy predicted students' anti-bullying attitudes positively and significantly in all three regions. For family contextual factors, parents' emotional support had positive effects on students' attitudes toward bullying in three regions. For school contextual factors, there was no consistent result among the three regions. School location and school belonging were positive predictors of students' anti-bullying attitudes in Mainland China. By contrast, class size and student behavior hindering learning negatively correlated with students' anti-bullying attitudes in Hong Kong. In Taipei, students in public schools were more likely to form anti-bullying attitudes, and a positive association was found between the student--teacher ratio and students' attitudes toward bullying. Distinguishing the commonalities and differences in the factors influencing students' attitudes toward bullying in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taipei provides empirical evidence to understand school bullying prevention and control mechanism. Copyright © 2023 Wiley.

A Community of Practice (CoP) was established in 2020 to promote positive life values and well-being among university students in the Education University of Hong Kong. The CoP team has adopted the Heaven, People, Environment, and Self perspectives to conduct life education and positive education and help students learn about transcendental, communal, environmental, and personal well-being. In this symposium, the CoP team members will share the results of a cross-sectional survey study about the levels and predictors of university students’ meaning in life and positive mental health. The CoP team members will also introduce a newly developed online learning platform, the E-hub for Life Education and Positive Education, which shares learning resources and teaching materials related to life education and positive education. Moreover, the CoP team members will introduce a collaborative digital storytelling project related to positive education, in which students are trained to create and reflect on a series of digital stories that highlight different contributing factors of a positive life, including personal character strengths and positive values (e.g., determination, courage, and bravery), family love and support, and friendship and collaboration. The CoP team members will discuss how these non-formal learning activities help students enhance personal, family and social well-being, and develop reflective skills and values-laden perspectives in their personal and professional lives. Copyright © 2021 ICLT.

Although previous research has indicated an association between school engagement and adolescent victimization, its causal direction has not been determined, particularly in Chinese and East Asian cultural contexts. This study used a longitudinal panel data to explore the likely causal direction between school engagement and adolescent victimization in the context of school and cyberspace. Three hundred fifty-six students and their homeroom teachers in lower secondary school (Grades 7–9) in Hong Kong participated in a 2-wave panel study with a 9-month time interval. Students provided self-report information on their experiences with school violence and cyberbullying, and their homeroom teachers assessed their students’ engagement in school. The results of latent variables and autoregressive cross-lagged panel analysis suggested that school engagement at wave 1 was a significant predictor of school victimization at wave 2, but school victimization at wave 1 did not predict school engagement at wave 2. Similarly, school engagement at wave 1 was a significant predictor of cyberbullying victimization at wave 2, but school victimization at wave 1 did not predict school engagement at wave 2. These findings were also relevant for both sexes. The findings demonstrated that school engagement could be a protective factor against adolescent exposure to violence in school and cyberspace in Hong Kong. The findings informed school practitioners in Hong Kong that increasing student engagement in school could be a key strategy to reduce students’ risk of being bullied in school and cyberspace. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.