This study focused on Hong Kong mathematics teachers' experiences and challenges in online distance teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 109 frontline mathematics teachers participated in the survey. Their teaching experiences and challenges during the pandemic were investigated through an online questionnaire and followed up through in-depth interviews. The results show that most teachers believed that their way of teaching mathematics had somewhat changed and that they had tried to offer e-learning as an alternative teaching mode to maintain the quality of teaching during the pandemic. They also tended to focus on external factors rather than internal factors during online teaching. Teachers agreed that a paradigm shift had occurred in the role of teaching during this time of crisis. Although they had developed sufficient levels of technology use, these did not necessarily translate to competence in achieving instructional goals. Ultimately, teachers' personal experiences with online teaching and their beliefs about mathematics teaching are crucial factors affecting the role and effectiveness of online teaching. Copyright © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Kevin Wai Ho Yung and Huixuan Xu; individual chapters, the contributors.

Hong Kong students’ declining motivation levels in learning music have become an alarming issue and a challenge for music educators. At the same time, while expressing an interest in popular music, local students have limited opportunities to study the genre as part of their formal school curricula. It leaves the question of what kinds of teaching strategies and music materials should be constructed to provide students with educational and musical values in the school music curriculum. The present study explores the effects and responses of implementing popular music education in the local classroom, examines students’ motivational levels and, the psychology of music learning based on the self-determination theory.A teaching approach was created based on the concepts from informal learning practices with the addition of singing elements, namely the Sing by Ear project. The approach is tailored to the Hong Kong classroom music context, as instruments and spacious practice rooms are not required when resources are limited. The project aims to provide a comprehensive music learning approach in which confidence, and satisfaction, and musicianship through listening, creating, and performing could be earned collaboratively and simultaneously with the activity. The current research was administered under the explanatory sequential approach, which involves two phases of data collection: a quantitative phase followed by a qualitative phase. By employing the convenience sampling method, 323 participants (aged 11- 14) were invited to the three-month project. Students were involved in singing cover songs by ear instead of reading music notations in an a cappella setting. A mobile learning strategy was adopted due to the enforcement of social distancing measures following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.Data were collected by pre-test and post-test survey instruments and student interviews to determine (1) the extent of self-determination for having formal school music lessons

In this study, we assessed the general marine environmental knowledge and attitudes of university students from eight public universities in Hong Kong. The Ocean Literacy Framework and revised New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) were used as tools for questionnaire development. Data were collected via in-person and online surveys. An in-person survey was conducted at the university canteen from 16 May to 24 May 2017, and an online survey was conducted via email from 1 May to 31 May 2017. A structured questionnaire was provided to interested students from different levels of study and majors. Data obtained from these surveys were summarized based on participants’ correct answers in the general knowledge section and five-point Likert scaling for attitude statements. Results show that Hong Kong university students possess moderate marine environmental knowledge and pro-environmental attitudes. Knowledge scores significantly correlate with demographic variables, such as major of study, gender, institution, and parents’ education. Students’ pro-environmental attitudes are associated with different factors, including participation in various marine recreational activities, taking marine-related courses, and attachment to conservative marine initiatives. The study results have implications regarding the advancement of marine environmental knowledge and the pro-environmental attitudes of university students, such as mapping a well-structured pathway for disseminating marine environmental knowledge, curricular involvement, and the development of an integrated web resource. Copyright © 2023 by the authors.

This study takes a rarely employed learner's angle in examining how students are learning in the English Medium Instruction (EMI) classroom. Particularly, the study tapped into students' listening strategy use when comprehending the teacher input, a context that is underexplored for strategy research and yet highly important because teacher input predominates in the EMI classroom. An EMI class of Grade 11 Biology in Hong Kong was recruited. Through lesson observations and stimulated recall interviews with a purposively selected sample of eight students, a taxonomy of listening strategies in EMI was constructed. The taxonomy reveals the uniqueness of listening to the teacher in EMI context due to the non-existence of planning and prediction strategies, the identification of novel strategies, and the classification of content-mediated and language-mediated cognitive strategies. Factoring in students' linguistic knowledge and Biology achievement, the findings indicated the usefulness for students to deploy a range of language-mediated, content-mediated and metacognitive strategies in combination. This paper ends with implications for future research and pedagogy in order to make EMI learning and teaching more successful. Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In the 21st century, financial literacy is an important survival skill. Empowering school children to make sensible financial decision-making has become essential. A financial competency framework (FCF) describes a set of essential financial competence (FC) elements that inform people with the financial knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors, and motivations to implement and assess their personal financial literacy, which is a solid means for coordinating financial education (FE) in schools. However, in Hong Kong, FE in schools is scattered across some subjects and insufficiently embeds the relevant FC elements listed in its FCF. Hence, this study first conducted a literature review on the importance of FE in schools and the use of FCF in school FE, and took Hong Kong as an illustrative example for reviewing the use of its FCF in the school curricula through curriculum mapping and suggested ways for advancing FE in schools. It was found that most FC elements are relevantly well mapped with various learning themes or subjects especially for the Self and Society learning theme in kindergarten, General Studies in primary subject, and four secondary subjects, including Life and Society, Technology Education, Life Planning Education and Career Guidance, and Business, Accounting and Financial Studies. These FC elements can be further coordinated with a school implementation guide, teacher training plan, and assessment tools to advance the FE in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2022 The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

A positive relation between English phoneme deletion skill, a measure of the theoretical construct phonological awareness (PHNA), and pronunciation accuracy (PRNA), the ability to read aloud correctly familiar English words, was found in 2 groups of Hong Kong high school students who learned English as a 2nd language. 81 7th graders and 72 10th graders were tested. The study identified 7 variables: CA, nonverbal intelligence, sight vocabulary, digit span, word span, phoneme deletion, and PRNA. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the interactions among the variables in predicting PRNA. Findings suggest that PHNA was predictive of PRNA for the 10th graders. The findings are discussed in light of the well-documented relation between PHNA and reading accuracy. Their implications for 2nd language education are also discussed. Copyright © 2016 APA, all rights reserved.

This study trialed a pedagogy of “To Play and Learn, To Inquire, To STEM and Code”. Supplementary with seven hands-on activity worksheets and 19 coding product templates and samples, the pedagogy was designed to expose students to the construction of electric circuits with Micro:bit in STEM classrooms for developing knowledge of electric circuits and problem-solving skills. The pedagogy was implemented as a 280-minute teaching in eight lessons for 23 selected Grade 5 classes, which involved 369 students from nine primary schools at Hong Kong. The results of pre-post-test validate the success of the pedagogy in students' statistically significant growth in all three topic-specific knowledge points. The results of questionnaire survey demonstrate the impact of the pedagogy on students' statistically significant growth in their awareness of and their confidence in applying the target problem-solving skills. The results of focus group interviews confirm that students were satisfied with the experiences and outcomes of the pedagogy in developing topic-specific knowledge and problem-solving skills. This study reveals that the pedagogy is well received by students; noticeably effective to enhance students' knowledge of electric circuits; and potential to promote their development of problem-solving skills. Future directions to extend the pedagogy for senior primary curriculum are discussed. Copyright © 2022 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.