Making online education effective and engaging has been a policy priority in the higher education (HE) sector since the COVID-19 pandemic arose in 2020. Based on an online survey and qualitative interviews, we examine experiences of HE students and teachers in Hong Kong, and provide recommendations that can enable countries/economies to leverage on the good practices of online education to rejuvenate HE in the post-COVID era. We find a need for greater institutional support beyond its current availability. Students’ perception of online education is less optimistic than what such labeling as “digital natives” suggests. However, with time, online education is being viewed more positively. Teachers find their online education workload to be higher. More female teachers cite difficulties in balancing work and life, while older teachers report more technological difficulties. Since many respondents come from public affairs programs, which emphasize interaction in the classroom, the findings suggest that a rethinking of pedagogical strategies of public affairs education is required. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s).

How can higher education institutions promote online education effectively? While education technology literature has offered various pedagogical prescriptions, inadequate attention has been paid to the individual-level factors that facilitate or prevent participant engagement, such as their e-readiness, work style, and work-life balance. Using data from a unique online survey of teachers and students in the three sites of Hong Kong, London and Singapore, this paper seeks to explore the ongoing experience of online education under the COVID-19 episode in a comprehensive manner that covers both perspectives of instructors and learners. It seeks to understand what kind of university-level support is available and how they are received by respondents, which offers timely insights as an unprecedented number of universities around the world are being pushed to embrace online education. Preliminary results suggest that while technological support is necessary, it needs to be supplemented by other policy instruments, such as flexible deadline and assessments or wellbeing and distressing advice, so as to help tackle the challenge of balancing teaching/learning with caring responsibilities while working/studying from home. Copyright © 2020 APPAM.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a tremendous impact on the pedagogy and learning experience of students in sub-degree education sector of Hong Kong. Online learning has become the “sole” solution to deal with student learning challenges during this chaotic period. In this study, we explore online learning for sub-degree students by using a community of inquiry (CoI). As such, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted on survey data gathered from 287 sub-degree students from the business and engineering disciplines. Results indicated that the network speed for online education determines the perceived cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence of students, whereas gender and academic disciplines of students are not moderating factors that create a significant difference in perceived cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence of students. Our study findings for creating and sustaining a purposeful online learning community are highlighted. Copyright © 2021 Lau, Tang, Chau, Vyas, Sandoval-Hernandez and Wong.

As a regional hub for education, Hong Kong has seen a growing population of international students. In contrast to existing conceptual models in acculturation literature that are often devoted to studying long-term settlers such as migrants or refugees in English-speaking countries (Smith & Khawaja, 2011), this study develops and tests a fine-grained model for degree-seeking mobile students. A mix-method was employed: a large scale survey (n = 619) across six Hong Kong universities and focus group interviews (n = 31). Bilingual competences were found to play important roles to predict socio-cultural adaptation together with academic efficacy, social support, contacts with locals and psychological adaptation. This study offered practical and managerial insights for educational policymakers, university senior management and administrations, academicians and research communities on how to manage the changes and accommodate the needs of international students so that we can attract a culturally diverse body of students. This research is significant because it extends the literature by examining socio-cultural adjustment during cross-cultural transitions in an increasingly globalized context. Copyright © 2018 HKERA International Conference.

Over the past few decades, Mainland China has witnessed a massive outflow of students to higher education institutions in Hong Kong. In the context of an up-surge in Mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong, this research aims to explore (1) why Mainland Chinese students choose to study in Hong Kong over other higher education systems, (2) perceptions about the advantages and disadvantages of studying in Hong Kong, and (3) challenges in the process of acculturation from their homeland to Hong Kong. Five key themes are identified: education, finance, learning culture, language, and discrimination/labelling. While Mainland Chinese students often struggle to blend into the new environment, most gradually become accustomed to the local way of life. What remains a challenge is (perceived) discrimination following political tensions over the 'one China, two systems' framework. This paper identifies the expectations and dissatisfactions of the participants with regard to studying in Hong Kong, ultimately offering higher-education administrators an insight into how to better cater for the expanding share of Mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong's universities. This research is significant because it extends the literature by examining acculturation and cultural adaptation issues in an increasingly globalized context.
[Copyright of Higher Education is the property of Springer Science & Business Media]