The present study examined the relationships among grit, academic performance, perceived academic failure, and stress levels of Hong Kong associate degree students using path analysis. Three hundred and forty-five students from a community college in Hong Kong voluntarily participated in the study. They completed a questionnaire that measured their grit (operationalized as interest and perseverance) and stress levels. The students also provided their actual academic performance and evaluated their perception of their academic performance as a success or a failure. The results of the path analysis showed that interest and perseverance were negatively associated with stress, and only perceived academic failure was positively associated with stress. These findings suggest that psychological appraisal and resources are more important antecedents of stress than objective negative events. Therefore, fostering students' psychological resilience may alleviate the stress experienced by associate degree students or college students in general.
[Copyright of Journal of adolescence is the property of Academic Press.]

Under the new education reform in Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has expanded its undergraduate education from 3 to 4 years since the 2012-2013 academic year. Along with the transition, the General University Requirements (GUR) has been developed as an integral part on general education of the new 4-year undergraduate curriculum of PolyU. The present study examined the implementation quality and effectiveness of the GUR in the 2012-2013 academic year based on focus group interviews with teachers. Twenty teachers who taught GUR subjects were interviewed for their perceptions and experiences about the GUR. Results revealed that the teachers generally had positive perceptions of the GUR in terms of its rationales, teaching and learning modes, and implementation quality. GUR subjects were also considered effective in helping students to develop in a holistic manner. The findings suggest that the first-year implementation of the GUR at PolyU was basically successful.

Background: This study is part of a larger study entitled “Secondary Students’ Independent Learning” funded by a Competitive Earmarked Research Grant (Number HKIED 8005/03H) of the Research Grants Committee, Hong Kong SAR Government. The original project aimed to establish and validate with empirical data, a conceptual framework of self-directed learning, the characteristics and processes involved and their relations with academic achievement of secondary students. Aims and Keywords: This study aimed to explore the effect of academic aims, goal setting and planning on academic achievement of secondary students. Sample: The sample comprised 14,846 students currently enrolled at Secondary 1 to Secondary 6 (except Secondary 5) from 23 secondary schools in Hong Kong. Methods: Students completed a self-administered questionnaire comprising 4-point Likert items (1: Strongly Disagree, 2: Partly Disagree; 3: Partly Agree, 4: Strongly Agree) on academic aims, goal setting, planning, and other aspects of self-directed learning not included in this study. Each construct was measured by five items. Measurement quality of the scales according to the framework was established using the Winsteps software (version 3.72.3). Based on Rasch scores of the latent variables and standardized scores of Chinese, English and mathematics, structural equation modeling was undertaken using Mplus (version 6). Results: Analyses indicated that academic aims and academic planning both directly predicted academic achievement, with educational aims being the stronger predictor. Academic goal setting indirectly predicted academic achievement via academic planning. Consistency was found both in the structure and in the effects of the predictor across gender and year levels. Conclusion: The study shows that self-directed learning has positive effect on academic achievement of secondary students of both gender and all year levels.

There is a strong need to understand, monitor, and enhance educational quality. This paper reports on a project that developed a framework of indicators for monitoring educational quality in Hong Kong primary schools. The framework was developed through various case studies and 2 large surveys of over 200 Hong Kong primary schools (involving over 650 classes, 3,800 teachers, and 20,000 students) during 1991-95. A preliminary framework, based on the research literature, included indicators at the student individual level, the classroom level, the teacher individual level, the teacher group level, and the organizational level. The framework was tested and developed through the 2 surveys (the first conducted in 1992 and the second in 1993-94) and a total of 12 case studies. Survey data was used to map the education profiles of Hong Kong primary schools by means on indicators; by percentage of schools in high, satisfactory, and low performance; by distribution of schools on each indicator; and by profiles of characteristics of effective and ineffective schools. Six tables and seven figures are included.

This article aims to explain the role principals play in the variation in academic achievement between secondary schools in Hong Kong. The article draws on survey data from 179 key staff and 2,037 students from 42 schools. The study uses 2 analytical approaches. First, it employs classification and regression tree analysis (CART). This was used to sort out the most significant leadership practices associated with student achievement. Second, based on first-stage analysis, the study further explores the effects of leadership practices on academic achievement using hierarchical linear modelling (HLM). Results indicate that transparent and efficient communication structures as managed by principals explained approximately 12% of between-schools variation in academic achievement. Leadership practices related to quality assurance and accountability and resource management also contributed to explaining between-schools variation in academic achievement, yet they had negative effects on student achievement. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
[Copyright of School Effectiveness and School Improvement is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09243453.2013.875044]

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between theories of intelligence and goal orientations, and their joint connections to students' academic achievement in the Chinese cultural context. A total of 418 university students in Hong Kong participated in the present study. The survey was administered to collect information on students' beliefs about their goal orientations, theories of intelligence and their college grade point averages. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The results suggest that beliefs in the incremental theory of intelligence contribute to students' academic achievements by facilitating their endorsement of mastery goals and performance-approach goals. Students' performance-avoidance goals have a negative association with academic success. Cultural factors and considerations are addressed to clarify further the culture-specific findings.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2014.893559]