This paper describes the development and initial validation of a Chinese reading motivation questionnaire (CRMQ) which was designed to assess Chinese students' reading motivation in Hong Kong. The development of the CRMQ consisted of two steps. In the first study, groups of items were constructed based on achievement motivation theories and existing instruments. The initial version of the CRMQ was administered to a small group of Grade 7 students in Hong Kong and exploratory factor analysis, item-total correlation, and reliability analyses were carried out to assess its psychometric quality. The CRMQ was then revised and administered to a larger sample of Grade 7 students in the second study. Findings of confirmatory factor analysis provided further validation for the proposed factor structure of the revised questionnaire. In addition, findings indicated that students' reading motivation was positively related to their strategy use, reading comprehension, and academic achievement. The findings of this study could enrich our understanding of Chinese reading motivation among Hong Kong students. Implications of these findings for implementing effective reading instruction in Chinese language teaching are also discussed.
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This study explored the problem of under-achievement in Hong Kong. Underachievers were compared with high achievers and low achievers on their motivational characteristics. The findings generally supported that motivational variables were important factors in discriminating under-achievers and high achievers. While under-achievers had poor academic self-concept, low attainment value in learning, and deficiencies in using effective learning strategies, they did not demonstrate maladaptive attributional pattern as described in Western studies. Implications of these findings for the study of under-achievement and implementation of interventions are discussed.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410120090803]

Background This was a small-scale study conducted in Hong Kong Chinese language classes, based on the research in cognitive strategy instruction.
Purpose This study aimed to explore whether Chinese language teachers were able to develop their own school-based strategy instruction programme through collaborating with the researcher.
Programme description The school-based programme was mainly adapted from a Chinese reading strategy instruction programme that was developed by the researcher. It aimed to enhance students' reading comprehension through direct teaching on different reading strategies.
Sample A total of 205 grade 7 students and six teachers from one secondary school in Hong Kong participated in the study. One of the teachers and six students from his class were specially invited to participate as target subjects in an in-depth investigation.
Design and methods This study adopted quantitative methods, including a reading comprehension test and questionnaire, and qualitative methods, including think-aloud measures, interview and observation in programme evaluation.
Results Findings of the study generally suggested that the school-based programme was implemented quite smoothly in the regular Chinese language lessons, and most of the students had better performance on their strategy use and reading comprehension after receiving the programme. While the findings provided preliminary support for developing a school-based strategy instruction programme in Hong Kong Chinese language classes, some problems in changing Chinese language teachers' instructional approach are also discussed.
Conclusions This study explored the possibility of developing a school-based strategy instruction programme in Chinese language classes. Due to the small scale and exploratory nature of the study, however, certain limitations of the research design of this study should be noted.
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Although academic underachievement is a familiar topic in educational research, there is no consensus on how underachievers should be selected. This study aimed to compare different selection methods, absolute split method, simple difference score method, regression method and nomination, in the identification of underachievers from a sample of 126 Chinese Grade 7 students. The results indicated that the three different statistical methods showed high congruence in selecting underachievers, but nomination selected a different group of underachievers. It was suggested that, depending on research or intervention purposes, information from statistical methods and nomination might combine to provide a more comprehensive identification procedure.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03055690120050419]