Passion and perseverance for long-term goals or grit has been linked to various indices of educational success such as academic achievement, engagement, and motivation. Despite the nascent evidence regarding the beneficial impact of grit, previous investigations adopted a variable-centered approach which could not explore how individuals with different profiles of grit may differ in terms of academic outcomes. The current research aimed to build on the existing grit literature through examining the linkage of grit to test emotions using a person-centered approach among 1,051 Hong Kong Chinese primary school students. Results of cluster analyses showed that there were three naturally-occurring profiles of grit (Cluster 1 = High Perseverance and High Consistency; Cluster 2 = High Perseverance and Low Consistency; Cluster 3 = Low Perseverance and High Consistency) in the present study. Results of the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) demonstrated that students who belonged to Cluster 2 had the highest scores on hope and lowest scores on anxiety and shame. The results imply that espousing high perseverance of effort and low consistency of interest is associated with higher levels of positive activating emotions and reduced levels of negative activating emotional states when taking academic tests. Copyright © 2018 The Author(s).

This paper reports and discusses the results of a study aimed at automatically categorising teacher feedback on student writing. A total of 3412 teachers’ written comments on 90 students’ draft essays were collected from an EFL course offered by a Hong Kong university during the first semester of 2016/17. The data were primarily used to design and implement an automated tool to classify teachers’ comments with respect to a taxonomy of their characteristics. The findings of this study show that the performance of the automated tool is comparable to that of human annotators, suggesting the feasibility of using the automatic approach to identify and analyse different types of teacher feedback. This study can contribute to future research into the investigation of the impact of teacher feedback on student writing in a big data world. Copyright © 2018 International Journal of Information and Education Technology. All rights reserved.

This article is an academic commentary on the concept of sociology of education. The authors have ventured through the lens of Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition and discuss its impact might have had if the corresponding mode of education and pedagogy be carried out in reality according to what Arendt had inspired her readers. A cross reference has been made on the recent 2017 early childhood reform document in Hong Kong on Play with the anticipated forms of education which the authors have perceived in Arendt’s The Human Condition, namely the ‘labor’, ‘work’ and ‘action’. Since “free play” is highly promoted in the latest early childhood reform document and is tempered by the role of the teacher. As teacher is endorsed to perform the role of “feedback-giver” in the process of play, it has matched precisely with Arendt’s perception of “works of art” and eventually paving the way to “action-vita-activa” as forms of education for the promotion of democratic collaborative learning. Since “Sociology” has an intimate connection with politics, it is anticipated that following the implementation of free play for young children in the early childhood classroom and by the tactic guide of the teachers, the educational landscape of the early years education in Hong Kong will be changed significantly. The impact of this on the society at large has yet to be examined in the long run. Copyright © 2018 INASED.

How migrants, refugees and minority groups acquire a sense of belonging in their adopted society is a concern for nations worldwide as they aim to balance the diversity and inclusion of growing numbers of migrants with ensuring harmony and cohesion across society. In postcolonial Hong Kong, the population diversity is accompanied with a swift change in the racialisation of Hong Kong where minorities in schools find themselves categorised as 'non-Chinese speaking' ('NCS') rather than a 'Hongkonger'. The NCS label stigmatises young people as linguistically and academically deficit, de-legitimises acceptance by the local Chinese, Cantonese speaking majority designated as 'Hongkongers'. Yet how minority youth interpret their status as 'NCS' and negotiate belonging in Hong Kong has received scant attention. This qualitative study is a substantive and theoretical contribution to the literature on how multilingual minorities can construct a positive sense of place-belonging to their adopted city. Reflecting the contentious nature of the politics of belonging, we found that students challenged and sought to redefine the narrow, prevailing identity of a 'Hongkonger'. Rather, they stressed their multilingual identity, historical affiliations, emotional attachments and place-belongingness to the city in order to legitimate their entitlement to sociopolitical belonging in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

本文以香港中文准教師沉浸課程的學習成果為研究材料，比較學前學後 PSC（國家普通話水準測試）成績，結合自我評估問卷調查，檢測沉浸課程的普通話學習成效。資料顯示，有超過 70% 的准教師在參加沉浸課程後達到了 PSC 二級乙等或以上水準，較之前增加 30% ；個人成績提升了 6 分左右，近 70% 的准教師提升了至少一個等級 ；沉浸課程對 PSC 三級甲等或以下等級的提升作用最明顯。研究發現，以 PSC 為導向的普通話能力訓練，以及語言環境、語伴活動和文化考察等多元化的語境實踐，可以從多個層面促進准教師的普通話進步，以及專業發展和個人成長。沉浸課程具備可以提高內在動機和外在動機的多種誘因，同時也需要照顧學生的認知和情感 ；而學習者開放心態，投入學習，也是課程成功的重要因素。This research examines the effectiveness of an immersion program in the Putonghua learning of pre-service Chinese teachers in Hong Kong by studying their selfevaluation questionnaires, as well as their pre- and post-PSC (Putonghua Shuiping Ceshi ‘Putonghua Proficiency Test’) results. It is shown that more than 70% of preservice Chinese teachers are able to attain Level 2B or above in their PSC through this program, at least a level higher than the one they previously attained. Each of them is able to get around 6 more marks in his/her PSC. The total number of preservice Chinese teachers attaining the aforementioned level or above increases by 30%. It also leads to a remarkable improvement in the PSC results of pre-service Chinese teachers who previously attained Level 3A or below. The immersion program has the most obvious effect on the students at Level 3A below. Moreover, this research discovers that a PSC oriented Putonghua skills training, along with the application of language skills in real-life contexts through culture exploration activities or a language buddy program, can lead to a significant improvement in the Putonghua proficiency of pre-service Chinese teachers in Hong Kong, as well as professional development and personal growth. An immersion program provides them intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to improve their Putonghua proficiency. Meanwhile, we need to take care of students’ cognition and emotion. The success of such immersion program depends on whether pre-service Chinese teachers are openminded and willing to concentrate on their Putonghua learning. Copyright © 2018 香港教育大學.

This paper aims at identifying the use, benefits and challenges of integrating Minecraft in teaching students with autism. Classroom observations, students-created manifests and interviews were conducted in two Chinese-speaking special schools in Hong Kong. It is concluded that Minecraft does have positive impact on how children with ASD learn. Students were more engaged in class, showed improved collaboration and communications skills, developed deeper relationship with their classmates and the teachers, and were more motivated to learn. Some potential challenges and concerns are discussed. Copyright © 2018 The Hong Kong Jockey Club.

Many education systems have implemented systemic reforms covering numerous new initiatives in nine trends since the turn of new century. After decades of implementation, it would be significant to know what impacts these reforms have made on key aspects of the education systems and what lessons can be learnt from them for future policy analysis, formulation and implementation locally and internationally. This article aims to provide a preliminary exploration of these issues with Hong Kong’s systemic education reforms. In Parsons’ construct of structural functionalism (Parsons, 1966), it is argued that a social system should serve four systemic functions such as adaptation, goal achievement, integration and pattern maintenance to survive and flourish in an environment of change and uncertainties. To explore the above issues, this article investigates what impacts of the reform have been made on the four functions of education system including “Has education been more effective?” (goal achievement), “Has the teaching workforce been better brought into work?” (adaptation), “Have stakeholders been more satisfied and united?” (integration), and “Have education policies been more legitimate and acceptable?” (pattern maintenance). It is hoped that such a preliminary observation with multiple sources of empirical data can provide an illustrative case to explore the possible issues and concerns of systemic education reforms initiated in the last two decades in different parts of the world and draw local and international implications for further development of new initiatives in education for the future. Copyright © 2018 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Understandings of social media and its pedagogical potentials remain controversial. Teachers tend to integrate social media in their teaching, which may bring about considerable impacts on their pedagogies in practices. In fact, this is an imperative issue which teacher educators in Hong Kong and those in other places are concerned. This paper reports a multi-case study about preservice teachers’ pedagogies when using social media in teaching. A classification of the social media landscape is called for due to confusion regarding the meanings of such terms as social media, Web 2.0 and user-created content. Two research questions were addressed: (1) What social media did the preservice teachers prefer to use in during their practicums; and (2) what pedagogies did the teachers adopted while involving social media in teaching in the placement schools? A total of 33 preservice teachers (N = 33) from a higher education institution in Hong Kong voluntarily participated in this study after open invitation. YouTube was the most popular standalone social medium and was also used in combination with other social media and non-social media websites to reflect the teachers’ practices in kindergartens, primary and secondary schools. Despite this, the preservice teachers mostly adopted didactic pedagogy with high frequencies of social media use during teaching practicums. This study contributes the salient understandings of pre-service teachers’ pedagogical orientations in using social media. Implications for teacher education are discussed. Copyright © 2018 ADTEL. All Rights Reserved