There has been a substantial rise in the number of students enrolling in part-time taught postgraduate awards. This study investigates the reasons or motivation for students to spend significant amounts on tutorial fees and find time alongside work, family and social commitments to take a taught postgraduate award. Data were gathered through interviews with 21 part-time students in taught postgraduate programmes in Hong Kong. Students all held several motives for studying, so the outcome was a framework for explaining multiple interacting motives. Main categories of motivation were related to qualifications, current career, potential future career, interest, perpetual students and professional and social networks. Individual students displayed varying degrees of these motivations and the sub-categories of them. Students were able to specify their needs in terms of advanced specialised study, so enrolment satisfied a need for continuing professional development. The rise in taught postgraduate enrolments, in search of advanced specialised knowledge, seems set to continue as undergraduate degrees become broader and more attribute-oriented and the knowledge explosion makes it harder to reach the frontiers of knowledge.
[Copyright of Studies in Continuing Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2011.646979]

Background: There has been a lack of research on exploring how beliefs about language learning (BALLs) and out-of-class language-learning activities are related. BALLs and out-of-class language-learning activities play an important role in influencing the learning behaviours of learners and learning outcomes. Findings of this study provide useful pedagogical implications for English teaching in Hong Kong.
Aim: The aim of the study is to gather information on the BALLs and out-of-class language-learning activities of young adult ESL learners in Hong Kong.
Sample: Convenience sampling is adopted in this study of 324 ESL (English as a Second Language) learners undertaking vocational education in Hong Kong.
Methods: Surveys on BALLs and out-of-class language-learning activities. Results: Findings indicate that learners held mostly positive beliefs. Watching films and television, reading, listening to English songs, music and radio channels, formal learning and practising speaking with others were the out-of-class language-learning activities reported by subjects that they carried out most frequently. There is an association between BALLs and the implementation of activities. Learners who regarded out-of-class language-learning activities as useful were found to possess more positive beliefs regarding their English learning in terms of BALLI (Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory) items. Learners who implemented out-of-class language-learning activities were found to have more positive beliefs in terms of two factors, "Perceived value and nature of learning spoken English" and "Self-efficacy and expectation about learning English."
Conclusion: The contextual influences of English being a prestigious language in Hong Kong and being attached with tangible rewards and power are suggested to contribute to the prevalence of instrumental motivation among ESL learners in Hong Kong. These influences, together with notion of modesty and the fear of losing face

The paper highlights the determinants for demand for private supplementary tutoring and their interrelationships in a case study of Hong Kong. Reviews of past local and international literature reveal several research gaps related to tutoring studies and lack of theoretical explanations for the emergence of tutoring demand. Based on relevant interview and survey data, some socio-economic and socio-cultural patterns of tutoring demand are depicted in terms of a multi-level socio-cultural argument for its nature and determinant relationships via some conceptual indicators. New issues and challenges to various educational fields are finally addressed.
[Copyright of Hong Kong Teachers' Centre Journal is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Centre at http://www.edb.org.hk/hktc]

In the face of heavy demand for private supplementary tutoring in basic education, the state seems to have adopted a consumerism model in the decentralised governance of mass tutoring, allowing students and parents to select for themselves course information, payment amounts and methods, tutoring dates and times, and physical conditions when buying services from registered cram schools in Hong Kong. In the study reported here, a 3-level cultural analysis of cram schools was conducted from 1998 to 2008 to examine the patterns of mass tuition trends in Hong Kong. The analysis investigated the impacts of such trends, or culture, upon youth values, and implications are drawn for policy making, educational reform, societal movements, and academic recommendations for further research.
面對課餘補習的極大需求，香港特區政府似乎採納以消費主義為本的分權管理模式，讓有需要的學生及家長自行考慮課程內容、收取的費用及收費方法、學習環境、補習日期及時間等條件，去選擇合宜的註冊補習社。通過三個層次的文化分析，本文旨在剖析補習社文化或風氣於1998年至2008年期間對青少年價值觀的影響，從而在管理政策、教育改革、社會運動及學術研究等多層面上提出建議。
[Copyright of Journal of Youth Studies is the property of The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups at http://yrc.hkfyg.org.hk/]