Although the goal of developing school students’ understanding of nature of science (NOS) has long been advocated, little is known about how science teachers, a kind of major stakeholder in NOS instruction, perceive the values of teaching NOS. Through semi-structured interviews, this study investigated the views of 15 Hong Kong in-service teachers toward the values of teaching NOS. The values of teaching NOS as perceived by the teachers fall into two types. The first type is related to students’ learning of science in the classroom and involves (i) facilitating the study of subject knowledge, (ii) increasing the interest in learning science, (iii) aiding the conduct of scientific inquiry, (iv)meeting the needs of public examination, and (v) fulfilling the inherent requirement of scientific learning. The second type goes beyond learning science and includes (i) developing thinking abilities, (ii) cultivating scientific ethos, and (iii) supporting the participation in public decisions on socioscientific issues. Although rich relationships were perceived by these teachers between NOS instruction and students’ learning of science, few values were stated from broad social and cultural perspectives. Suggestions are made on designing programs to prepare teachers for teaching NOS.

This paper, through discussion of a teaching intervention at two secondary schools in Hong Kong, demonstrates the learning advancement brought about by group work and dissects the facilitating role of teachers in collaborative discussions. One-hundred and fifty-two Secondary Two (Grade 8) students were divided into three pedagogical groups, namely "whole-class teaching", "self-directed group work" and "teacher-supported group work"groups, and engaged in peer-review, team debate, group presentation and reflection tasks related to a junior secondary science topic (i.e. current electricity). Pre- and post-tests were performed to evaluate students' scientific conceptions, alongside collected written responses and audio-recorded discussions. The results indicate that students achieved greater cognitive growth when they engaged in cooperative learning activities, the interactive and multi-sided argumentative nature of which is considered to apply particularly well to science education and Vygotsky's zone of proximal development framework. Group work learning is also found to be most effective when teachers play a role in navigating students during the joint construction of conceptual knowledge.
[Copyright of International Journal of Science Education is the property of Routledge]

In the last few decades, the Asia Pacific region has faced unprecedented social, economic, political and environmental challenges. These in turn have prompted the necessity for partnerships on order to realise sustainable development in the region.

The Hong Kong education system has undergone a dramatic change in its secondary and tertiary level of education. A single public examination for senior secondary education namely Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) was adopted to replace two previously used examinations in 2012. As a result, all higher education institutes in Hong Kong admitted different groups of secondary graduates into the same cohort in 2012 for sub-degree programmes. This study investigated the academic performance of students from different secondary schooling systems in an environmental studies course. Questionnaire survey data and the assessment results of a compulsory course of the students were used for this study. Results indicated significant differences in academic performance in the environmental studies course between three different groups of students. The students that completed a three-year senior secondary education outperformed their counterparts who completed the pre-associate degree and four-year senior secondary education in the environmental course assessment results. Students' environmental attitudes were positively correlated with academic performance on the environmental course, suggesting that students with better environmental attitudes performed better in the environmental studies course.
[Copyright of International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10382046.2016.1155323]