Educators and researchers have suggested that positive relations with their parents would have significant impacts on children's attitudes and behaviours. The present study has two purposes: (a) to examine whether parent-child relations would influence low achievers' liking of school, and (b) to investigate whether low achievers' parent-child relations and liking of school could be improved through a focused intervention emphasizing interpersonal skills. Using a confirmatory factor analysis approach, the path from prior self-concept of parent relationship to subsequent self-concept of academic affect were examined using a sample of students who failed in the school system of Hong Kong but were provided with further education opportunities through an innovative program known as Project Yi Jin initiated by the Special Administrative Region government of Hong Kong (N = 2,779). Controlled for the effect of prior academic affect, prior parent-child relations were found to have a significant, though small, association with subsequent academic affect. The results supported the positive influence of parent-child relations on children's liking of school. Analysis of variance of pretest and posttest scores showed that as a result of a program emphasizing the development of interpersonal skills, the students improved in both parent-child relations and liking of school. The findings have important implications for a holistic approach to children's education by incorporating parent education as an important component of the education system.
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Using confirmatory factor analysis this study examines the cross-cultural generalizability of the factor structure for the Inventory of School Motivation (ISM), an instrument based on Personal Investment theory. The instrument consists of eight different scales with 43 survey items (ranging from 3 to 7 items each) and each reflecting one of eight specific dimensions: task, effort, competition, social power, affiliation, social concern, praise, and token. The factor structure was invariant over large samples of responses by Anglo-Australian (n=2,616), Migrant Australian (n=1,265), Aboriginal Australian (n=906), Hong Kong Chinese (n=697), Navajo (n=1,776), Anglo-American (n=884) and African (n=819) cultural groups of high school students. The results of factorial invariance analysis indicated that the ISM has a stable and reliable factor structure among the 7 cultural groups. Findings also provide evidence that the ISM scales are applicable to students of different cultural backgrounds; meaningful cross-cultural comparisons should use the 43 items in educational settings.
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This report is concerned with the development of measurement scales for self-learning of secondary students. Self-learning refers to a process whereby the learner participates actively in the act of learning, including planning, goal setting, progress monitoring, selecting learning strategies and controlling the learning environment. The capacity for self-learning has been accorded high priority in recent years by major education systems, particularly those in the Asia Pacific region. This study is motivated by the lack of measurement tool available for the study of self-learning in countries where Chinese is the main medium of instruction, including China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. The sample comprised 398 secondary students from Hong Kong secondary schools and a comparable sample of 200 secondary students from Macau. Questionnaires with Likert items were administered to the students during class-time. Scales included students' goal setting, academic motivation, self-efficacy, information processing strategies, monitoring and management of learning resources. Rasch modelling and confirmatory factor analysis were used to establish construct validity of these scales. Differences across males and females, grade levels, and regions were reported in the paper.
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Second language acquisition has social and psychological perspectives. The success of second-language learning depends very much on how a learner is motivated to learn the second language. Motivation is the central element in Gardner's Socio-Educational Model (Gardner, 1985). Factor analysis illustrated four major constructs: Integrativeness, Attitudes toward the Learning Situation, Motivation, and French-Language Anxiety (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993). Intergrativeness was considered as the most important factor in explaining the language learning motivation (Csizér, Dörnyei, 2005). Language learning is culturally based, and people speaking the same language would quickly identify themselves from people speaking other languages. It is assumed in Gardner's model that if a learner identifies him/herself as a member of the second language group, he/she would have higher motivation to learn the language. In the language-learning context, the attitudes toward language situation, and the anxiety perceived in language class and language use environments affect the learner's persistence in language learning. The present paper tries to identify factors pertinent to the learning of English as a second language in Hong Kong and Sydney, Australia. Path modelling will be used to determine the relative contribution of English language motivation, language anxiety and Attitudes toward English learning.
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