Special education is necessarily an integral part of universal basic education. Therefore special education has seen substantial development in the past decade in most Chinese societies, which have all accomplished remarkable degrees of universal basic education. However, developing special education, by fundamental principles, is based on the needs of the individual children. Such principles are rather foreign to Chinese education systems which assume that individuals should submit themselves to community needs, and education is the very means to realise such an assumption. Nonetheless, special education also assumes that barriers to learning caused by innate disabilities could be overcome by efforts, but this is very much also basic to the values of education in Chinese societies. This short paper purports to illustrate the interplay between special education and the traditional education values in Chinese societies. Copyright by Special Education Society of Hong Kong Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Bullying is a common aggressive behanviour and a hidden issue in special schools. Maladaptive family backgrounds breed bullies and victims. The characteristics and myths of bullying are discussed. A multi-level approach of school intervention is suggested. Local research on this area is desperately required. Copyright by Special Education Society of Hong Kong Limited. All Rights Reserved.

The Self-determined Exercise and Learning For FITness (SELF-FIT; Australia New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry: ACTRN12615000633583) intervention was designed based on self-determination theory to increase secondary school students' physical activity levels. The intervention included a novel gaming tool (fitness dice) and teachers were trained to teach in an autonomy supportive way. In this study, we reported the qualitative data collected from the trial. Seventy-five students and 11 teachers from 10 Hong Kong secondary schools were interviewed through focus groups and through interviews respectively. Thematic data analysis was conducted. Students and teachers felt that the intervention enhanced students' knowledge of physical fitness and how to perform exercises (competence), gave them control over which activities to do (autonomy), and increased students' connectedness with peers and teachers (relatedness). In turn, students' motivation for physical activity was enhanced. These findings provided evidence for effectiveness of SDT-based PA promotion intervention with autonomy-supportive teachers. Copyright ©Edizioni Luigi Pozzi s.r.l.

This paper reports the findings of a quasi-experimental study that investigated the impacts of effective group work on Hong Kong science classrooms. One hundred and fifty-two Secondary 2 (or Grade 8) students from two schools participated in a teaching intervention (comprising 16 lessons) in which they studied the topic 'Making Use of Electricity' and resolved a series of related scientific inquiries. Informed by both the quantitative (i.e. diagnostic tests) and qualitative (i.e. science inquiry questions, audio-recordings of group discussions and focus-group interviews) results of the study, this paper reveals that effective group work can narrow the social and gender differences in Hong Kong students' science performance. Whilst a dynamic and respectful learning environment was found to help economically disadvantaged and female students to overcome such barriers to science learning as low self-esteem and high anxiety, a gender-balanced and socioeconomically diverse arrangement was found to be an important element of social group work practice. Finally, the study's broad implications for teacher and peer support for science teaching worldwide are also discussed. Copyright ©Routledge.

The number of Chinese children living in poverty has risen steadily in Hong Kong, China. However, little is known on the longitudinal effects of family socioeconomic status (SES) on cognitive-linguistic skills, word reading and writing in children from low-SES backgrounds. This study examines differences in cognitive-linguistic skills and word reading and writing across kindergarteners from the low- and middle-SES groups. It also investigates the direct link between SES and children's concurrent Chinese literacy skills and how cognitive-linguistic skills mediate the longitudinal associations between SES and word reading and writing. One hundred and nine children were assessed at Kindergarten K2 (Time 1) and reassessed at Kindergarten K3 (Time 2). Children were administered the measures of vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, executive functioning, Chinese word reading, and Chinese word dictation at both time points. Results revealed that low-SES children performed less well on Chinese word reading and dictation than their middle-SES peers at both time points. Moreover, hierarchical regression and mediation analyses suggested that SES had a direct relation with Chinese word reading at Time 1 after controlling for age and cognitive-linguistic skills, and an indirect link with Chinese word dictation at Time 2 which was fully mediated by phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge at Time 1. The results highlight that SES may exert an impact on children's early Chinese reading and writing and suggest the benefit of improving phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge of low-SES children. Copyright ©Springer Netherlands.

Online learning has become a ubiquitous part of the educational landscape and how teachers are supported in developing approaches to teaching online is a fundamental aspect of the students' learning experience. Based on the implementation of a professional development course on becoming an online teacher offered in a blended learning mode at one university in Hong Kong, this article proposes that offering this type of professional development in a blended mode is very effective in facilitating enhanced usage of the university's learning management system. In a blended mode, teachers are actively engaged with blended learning and were found to make more extensive use of features/tools in Blackboard after they attended the professional development course. Results support that offering professional development in a blended mode provides teachers with an authentic student perspective, at the same time as they take guided steps in the teacher's role in blended learning. Copyright ©Routledge.

Increasingly, universities have been engaging in transnational higher education (TNE), and such activity provides students with an additional study option. While much is already known about the TNE activities of universities in larger countries, such as Australia and the United Kingdom, very little is known about universities from smaller countries, such as Ireland. This article examines an Irish university with international branch campuses in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. The results of a survey exploring the factors that influenced students' choice of location, institution, and program and conducted among three cohorts of students over a 2-year period are presented. The results suggest that, above all other factors, the university's international ranking and the accreditations and rankings of its Business School are particularly influential in students' decision-making process. This finding highlights a potential exposure in terms of the scale of the institution's student recruitment and revenue streams should it ever experience a decline in its rankings or international reputation. Copyright ©Sage Publications, Inc.