Kindergarten teachers’ performance at work has important implications for the quality of early childhood education and the development of children. Therefore, promoting teachers’ work performance is of interest to kindergarten managers and policymakers. Evidence suggests that professional development opportunities may play an important role in understanding employees’ work performance. However, the possible mechanism underlying the relationship between professional development opportunities and work performance remains underexplored, especially among kindergarten teachers. This cross-sectional study examined whether professional commitment and work engagement mediated the association of professional development opportunities with work performance among Chinese kindergarten teachers. Online questionnaire data were collected from 336 kindergarten teachers working in Hong Kong, China (mean age = 31.6 years; 86% of them were women). Kindergarten teachers rated the availability of professional development opportunities and their work performance. They also rated their professional commitment (indicated by affective, continuance, and normative commitment) and work engagement (indicated by vigor, dedication, and absorption). Structural equational modeling revealed that both professional commitment and work engagement uniquely mediated the association between professional development opportunities and work performance. The findings illustrated how professional development opportunities may enhance work performance by motivating teachers at the affective/cognitive and the behavioral levels. The findings also pointed to the potential utility of supporting the work performance of kindergarten teachers by providing them with ample professional development opportunities and promoting their professional commitment and work engagement. Copyright © 2025 by the authors.

Aim: It is common for Chinese students to sit quietly during classroom lectures, attentively following teachers’ instructions without interacting or asking questions, viewed as passive engagement. This study aims to understand further the passive engagement of Chinese students in relation to classroom questioning, just-in-time feedback and collaborative activities. With objectives to formulate strategies to enhance Chinese students' engagement in a large class learning environment without undermining the cultural dimension of "face". Background: Engaging in collaborative educational activities between teachers and students can be challenging in a large classroom learning environment. Within the Chinese context, Confucian-heritage culture may further exacerbate the challenges teachers face. Chinese students often appear passive when responding to questions. In this situation, educators may receive insufficient student feedback to modify and optimise their teaching and learning approaches. Design: A qualitative research method, with an interpretative phenomenological approach was employed in a self-financed institute of higher education in Hong Kong. Methods: Eight nursing graduates were invited to participate in two focus group interviews to generate teaching and learning strategies. In addition, individual in-depth interviews were conducted with twelve nursing teachers recruited through a snowballing sampling strategy. The narratives were coded, categorised, themed, analysed and interpreted through thematic analysis. Results: Chinese students are concerned with "losing face" and the fear of being teased by their peers in a collectivist culture. Based on these findings, three teaching and learning strategies for engaging students in classroom questioning and collaborative activities were generated. These strategies include using digital learning platforms, the promotion of communication and fostering interpersonal relationships. Conclusions: In higher education, academic

Perusall, a collaborative reading tool, was introduced in an advanced reading and writing skills course in Hong Kong to increase engagement with texts and encourage critical discussion during the COVID-19 face-to-face class suspension. Students were asked to use the Perusall platform to complete pre-class readings, highlight and annotate text and critically discuss and answer questions. In this innovation in practice article, we describe why we adopted Perusall and the pedagogical implications of doing so. We aim to assist L2 teachers in encouraging active reading and critical discussion to enhance motivation in language learners. Copyright ©2024 SAGE Publications.

With the ability to provide feedback and assistance, humanoid educational robots have been proven effective in assisting students to overcome learning challenges and enhancing individual learning outcomes. However, the strength of humanoid robots in promoting social and emotional skills has not been well investigated. Socially supportive behaviour can contribute more to students’ learning engagement than knowledge transfer. This study focuses on the design of humanoid robots to engage students from functional and affective perspectives. To this end, a pilot test is conducted on 64 primary school students in Hong Kong, comprising a control group ( N  = 33) and an experimental group ( N  = 31). Questionnaires, observations, and language proficiency test are done to ensure the validity of the findings. The results show that the experimental group, which learned with the humanoid robots, significantly improved their behavioural engagement (+ 13.24%), emotional engagement (+ 13.14%), cognitive engagement (21.56%), and intrinsic motivation (12.07%). The impact of utilizing humanoid robots in education is elucidated through the lens of the self-determination theory (SDT), which pertains to students’ learning motivation and engagement. These findings can provide valuable insights into the development of more captivating humanoid robots for extensive learning purposes. Copyright ©2024 Springer.

Students' perceived competencies may reflect dispositions to trigger and enhance engagement acts and promote engagement benefits. Although perceived competencies and engagement acts are significant resources in STEM learning, their relationships remain unclear. Accordingly, we applied the transactional model of engagement (TME) to examine these associations, focusing on how emotional and cognitive engagement affect the mediating effect of perceived digital inquiry on perceived creativity. The participants were 305 secondary school STEM learners in Hong Kong. Mediation analyses showed that emotional engagement mediated the positive relationship between perceived digital inquiry and creativity, whereas cognitive engagement had no such mediating effect. Copyright ©2024 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

A key pedagogical goal in any classroom is to engage students in learning. This study examines how an English-Medium-Instruction (EMI) teacher employs available resources to engage his students in the classroom for promoting participation, keeping the lesson moving forward and meeting the pedagogical goals. The data for this study is based on a intensive fieldwork in an EMI secondary history classroom in Hong Kong. Multimodal Conversation Analysis is deployed to analyse the classroom interactional data. The classroom analysis is triangulated with the video-stimulated-recall-interviews that are analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The study's crucial theoretical contribution is that it broadens our comprehension of an EMI classroom as an integrated translanguaging space, which may involve various fluid and mobile translanguaging sub-spaces. This paper aims to illustrate the process of engaging students affords the teacher to create different translanguaging sub-spaces at a whole-class level and at an individual level. It is argued that creating these translanguaging sub-spaces requires the teacher to mobilise available resources for catering for the different needs of all students, which promotes interaction and inclusion in the classrooms. Copyright ©2025 Routledge.

Introduction: Students’ peer relatedness is vital to their academic achievement and engagement. However, little is known about the mechanisms that can explain such a link in health professions education, especially in interprofessional education (IPE), where interprofessional socialization is promoted. To address the research gap in understanding the social dynamics embedded within IPE and their impact on crucial motivational outcomes, this study examines how peer relatedness (belonging) mediates the link between motivation (both intrinsic and extrinsic) and engagement in IPE. Methods: Data from 841 students enrolled in IPE from Medicine, Nursing, Social Work, Chinese Medicine, Pharmacy, Speech and Hearing Sciences, Clinical Psychology, and Food and Nutritional Science from a university in Hong Kong were used in this study. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were collected at baseline, while peer relatedness need satisfaction and engagement and disaffection in IPE were assessed after four weeks. We used a fully latent structural equation model to examine whether peer relatedness mediated the link between motivation and engagement in IPE. Results: Our results indicate that intrinsic motivation at baseline significantly increases engagement and reduces disaffection four weeks later, while extrinsic motivation shows the opposite effect. Crucially, the adaptive role of motivation to engagement was significantly mediated by relatedness from IPE teams. Specifically, the effect of students’ motivation on their engagement/disaffection in IPE can be partially explained by their relatedness within IPE teams. Conclusion: This study underscores the importance of peer relatedness in IPE, highlighting its role in harnessing student motivation to foster student engagement. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the psychosocial mechanisms in IPE and highlight the value of collaborative learning environments in fulfilling students’ need for relatedness, thereby fostering

Online professional development (PD) can be a sustainable and easily scalable alternative to provide early childhood teachers with training opportunities. However, there is limited research on teachers’ levels of satisfaction and engagement in online PD initiatives. Understanding teachers’ levels of satisfaction and engagement is crucial, as these may influence the effectiveness of online PD in benefiting teachers and ultimately young children. This study aimed to examine Hong Kong kindergarten teachers’ satisfaction and engagement in a music-and-movement (M&M) online PD course. This study involved 56 participants who received an 11-week online PD course. Questionnaires were administered after course completion. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and t-tests. Participants had high levels of satisfaction with the course, particularly those with no or some M&M background, who were more satisfied with the course content and instruction. Participants had moderate-to-high levels of engagement in the course, particularly those with no or some M&M background, who were more emotionally engaged. We conclude that sustainable and easily scalable online PD initiatives can result in high levels of satisfaction and engagement among kindergarten teachers, especially those with limited M&M background. This study supports the idea that online PD can be responsive to teachers’ needs and preferences. Copyright © 2024 by the authors.

Entrepreneurship is crucial for fostering innovation and opportunity in a rapidly evolving global economy. Introducing it in secondary schools is challenging due to potential cognitive overload and the complexity of the skills required. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a Learning Management System (LMS) using Cognitive Load Theory for improving entrepreneurial skills among secondary students in Hong Kong. In the study, 280 students from 16 schools completed the LMS intervention. Through a series of t-tests, ANCOVAs, and multilevel models, we examined the effects of an LMS on students' entrepreneurial attributes and aspirations. The results indicated that the LMS enhances students' perceptions of entrepreneurial concepts. However, the effectiveness of the LMS was influenced by two key factors: the level of student engagement with the system and their previous entrepreneurial experiences. Higher engagement with the LMS and more extensive prior entrepreneurial experiences were found to significantly boost students' entrepreneurial attributes and aspirations. The outcomes indicate that by organizing content to minimize cognitive overload, the LMS facilitated the development of sophisticated cognitive schemas essential for entrepreneurial thinking. Copyright © 2024 The Author(s).

This paper presents a study on the evaluation of hybrid learning and teaching practices by academics. A mixed research method involving a questionnaire survey and a focus group interview was employed to gather academics’ feedback on their experience in delivering hybrid instruction in a synchronous manner in which on-site and remote students attended classes simultaneously, their students’ hybrid learning effectiveness, and their suggestions for improvement. The questionnaire was administered to 76 academics from a university in Hong Kong where hybrid learning and teaching were implemented, and the focus group interview involved 10 academics. The findings reveal that the participating academics perceived themselves as having an overall high degree of readiness to handle technical issues. They expressed that the students from their hybrid classes had lower levels of interaction, engagement, and motivation than those from traditional face-to-face classes. The participants also reported their challenges regarding hybrid learning and teaching, including heavy workload for lesson preparation and face-to-face and online classroom management, unfamiliarity with interactive teaching design suitable for hybrid classes, and difficulties in monitoring students’ learning process. They provided suggestions for the improvement of hybrid classes, ranging from the provision of technological support to professional development for enhancing students’ online interaction and engagement. These findings contribute to revealing academics’ experience in practising hybrid learning and teaching and identifying ways to address their challenges. © 2023 by the authors.