High-quality caregiver-child relationships are critical to healthy development, including the acquisition of language and literacy skills. However, their potential benefits to early mathematical development and its underlying mechanisms have been minimally explored. In view that language and literacy development play prominent roles in mathematical development, this study investigated whether very young children's relationship quality with parents and teachers were linked with their mathematical ability through language and literacy abilities. One hundred and thirty two-year-olds from pre-nursery classes in Hong Kong were tested on their early academic abilities. Furthermore, their parents and teachers evaluated on questionnaires the quality of their relationships with the children. Results of path analyses indicated that after controlling for children's age, parent-child closeness was associated with children's mathematical ability via language ability. Teacher-child closeness had a direct link to children's mathematical ability, as well as indirect links through language and literacy abilities. Parent-child conflict and teacher-child conflict had neither direct nor indirect relations with children's mathematical ability. These results suggest that mathematical development is interwoven with language and literacy development beginning in the early years. Also, parents and teachers should be reminded the importance of building close and affectionate relationships with very young children when nurturing the foundation for academic development. Copyright © 2023 Springer.

Computational thinking (CT) practices is a critical cognitive tool for students to overcome challenges in this technological era. Few studies investigated CT practices from a development perspective. A two-year intervention was implemented in 30 intervention and 22 control schools in Hong Kong to promote CT education (T1baseline: N = 13,056; T2: N = 16,367; and T3: N = 15,269). Senior primary students (grades 4 to 6) around 8–12 years old were targeted. Among them, 34% were girls at T1baseline. Their learning progression of cognitive development was assessed with a CT practices test. Data were analyzed using item response analysis. Learning trajectories of CT practices were modeled to understand how students’ cognitive development differed between schools. Insights of findings were discussed in bringing CT practices to life. Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

High-quality caregiver-child relationships are critical to healthy development, including the acquisition of language and literacy skills. However, their potential benefits to early mathematical development and its underlying mechanisms have been minimally explored. In view that language and literacy development play prominent roles in mathematical development, this study investigated whether very young children’s relationship quality with parents and teachers were linked with their mathematical ability through language and literacy abilities. One hundred and thirty two-year-olds from pre-nursery classes in Hong Kong were tested on their early academic abilities. Furthermore, their parents and teachers evaluated on questionnaires the quality of their relationships with the children. Results of path analyses indicated that after controlling for children’s age, parent–child closeness was associated with children’s mathematical ability via language ability. Teacher–child closeness had a direct link to children’s mathematical ability, as well as indirect links through language and literacy abilities. Parent–child conflict and teacher–child conflict had neither direct nor indirect relations with children’s mathematical ability. These results suggest that mathematical development is interwoven with language and literacy development beginning in the early years. Also, parents and teachers should be reminded the importance of building close and affectionate relationships with very young children when nurturing the foundation for academic development. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

The purpose of this study is to investigate into the possibility of utilizing socio-scientific issues as a vehicle to promote students’ metacognitive regulation, self-efficacy and conceptual understanding in an ecology classroom in Hong Kong. There has been little research to assess how these constructs are influenced by an issue-based inquiry classroom environment set in ecological context, and how these constructs interact with each other. The researcher has designed a metacognitive-rich environment for learning through a socio-scientific issue in a high school ecology classroom. Students’ perceptions about the metacognitive orientation of the classroom environment were assessed by the Metacognitive Orientation Learning Environment Scale (Science) to provide evidence for the validity of the lesson design in creating a metacognitive-rich environment. The effect of embedding explicit metacognitive tasks into a socio-scientific issue on students’ self-efficacy and metacognition were assessed through a quasi-experimental study using the Motivation Strategy for Learning Questionnaire and post-lesson individual interviews. 54 students from a Hong Kong long-established boy school participated in this study. The changes of the dependent variables under study were analyzed using an independent samples t-test and a 2x2 mixed-design analysis of variance to indicate the effect of this specially designed intervention in the biology classroom. The quantitative results suggested the intervention has created significant positive effects on students’ metacognitive regulation and self-efficacy but not conceptual understanding. Results from the multivariate analysis of variance and Pearson correlations suggest that the three dependent variables under study are correlated. To assist in the interpretation of the quantitative findings, individual interviews with students in the intervention group were analyzed thoroughly based on the concurrent triangulation approach. The interview results

In Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programmes, students learn content knowledge and a second/foreign language (L2) simultaneously. It follows that both content and language are assessed, although research on how to do so remains scarce. This study explores the interplay between cognitive and linguistic demands of CLIL assessments. Having analysed over 4900 questions in Science/Biology textbooks, workbooks and examination papers in Hong Kong, we observed that junior secondary assessments were dominated by low-level cognitive (i.e. recall of knowledge) and linguistic (i.e. no production or word-level production) demands, whereas senior secondary assessments required higher-order thinking skills (i.e. application and analysis of knowledge) expressed in sentences or even texts. Also, based on the analysis of 70 junior secondary students' performance in school examination papers, we noticed a potential hindrance of linguistic demands to students' performance in CLIL assessments. These findings together underscore the integral role of language in CLIL assessments and raise questions about the adequacy of existing pedagogical practices in preparing students to tackle both cognitive and linguistic demands in CLIL assessments, particularly when they proceed to higher grade levels where the demands in both dimensions leap. These have significant implications for CLIL assessment design, pedagogy and teacher education. Copyright ©Routledge.

本文的主要目的是介紹一套為有特殊教育需要的粵語兒童而設的語文教育套件。此套件包括評估工具、語言發展階梯、課程內容和活動建議。希望套件對學童學習和語文科教師教學有幫助。套件內容包括學習語文中不同的範疇(例如︰聆聽、說話、閱讀和寫作等)的發展概況和資料，可供從事特殊教育工作者，特別是語文教師，參考和使用。此外，在使用套件的過程中，不同的專業人士有一起協作的機會，使彼此均有長足的發展。
[Copyright of 香港特殊教育論壇 is the property of 香港特殊教育學會有限公司. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
https://sites.google.com/a/seshk.org.hk/seshk-org-hk/c_publication]

Children's understanding of the concepts of teaching and learning is closely associated with their theory of mind (ToM) ability and vital for school readiness. This study aimed to develop and validate a Preschool Teaching and Learning Comprehension Index (PTLCI) across cultures and examine the causal relationship between children's comprehension of teaching and learning and their mental state understanding. Two hundred and twelve children from 3 to 6 years of age from Hong Kong and the United States participated in study. The results suggested strong construct validity of the PTLCI, and its measurement and structural equivalence within and across cultures. ToM and PTLCI were significantly correlated with a medium effect size, even after controlling for age, and language ability. Hong Kong children outperformed their American counterparts in both ToM and PTLCI. Competing structural equation models suggested that children's performance on the PTLCI causally predicted their ToM across countries.
[Copyright © 2017 Wang, Wang and Chui.]

Are teachers consciously aware of the strategies for enhancing the metacognitive processes of their students? To a large extent teachers' abilities to motivate and empower students to self-regulate their own learning processes is and has been the cause for concern among many educators even to date. Educators must focus on teaching students how to think, how to learn and to take active control over their own learning so that they are responsible for their own learning outcome. In this paper, a comparative study of teachers’ knowledge of metacognitive instruction in Hong Kong and Singapore were examined. MANOVA and a regression analysis were used to examine the patterns of teachers' knowledge of metacognitive instruction. The implications from the findings will be drawn with a view to enhance teacher education programmes.