Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought challenges to families around the world. The prolonged school closures in Hong Kong have forced young students to stay at home and adapt to remote learning for over a year, putting their mental health conditions at risk. Focusing on primary school students and their parents, the main objective of our research is to investigate the socioemotional factors and their associations with mental health conditions. Methods: A total of 700 Hong Kong primary schoolers (mean age = 8.2) reported their emotional experiences, loneliness, and academic self-concept via a user-friendly online survey; 537 parents reported depression and anxiety, perceived child depression and anxiety, and social support. Responses from students and parents were paired to account for the family context. Structural Equation Modeling was used for correlations and regressions. Results: The results of students’ responses showed that positive emotional experiences were negatively associated with loneliness and positively related to academic self-concept among students. Furthermore, the paired sample results showed that, during the one-year societal lockdown and remote learning period, the socioemotional factors were associated with mental health conditions among primary school students and their parents. Among our family sample in Hong Kong, evidence supports the unique negative association between students-reported positive emotional experiences and parents-reported child depression and anxiety, as well as between social support and parents’ depression and anxiety. Conclusions: These findings highlighted the associations between socioemotional factors and mental health among young primary schoolers during the societal lockdown. We thus call for more attention to the societal lockdown and remote learning context, especially since the social distancing practice could be “the new normal” for our society to handle the future pandemic crisis. Copyright © 2023 The Author

Growing evidence indicates that early exposure to music and movement (M&M) positively impacts young children’s self-regulation. However, little attention has been paid to what kindergarten teachers know and believe about the relationship between M&M and self-regulation, and even less to how teachers’ background in M&M relates to their knowledge and beliefs. This study investigates these topics using survey data from 306 Hong Kong kindergarten classroom teachers. Descriptive, correlation, and independent sample t-tests were conducted. Most teachers believed they possessed a high level of understanding on the topic, particularly those with M&M background. These participants held stronger beliefs that M&M fosters children’s self-regulation, specifically motor-coordination skills, impulse control, and emotional management. We conclude that kindergarten teachers’ knowledge of, and beliefs in the role of M&M to support children’s self-regulation are influenced by their own M&M background. Indeed, the more M&M activities teachers have been exposed to, the deeper their understandings on how M&M contributes to children’s self-regulatory skills. The main implication is the need to further expose kindergarten teachers to M&M learning experiences, be it formally or informally. Copyright © 2023 Authors.

Financial capability is an important competence for adolescents, and secondary school is a natural setting in which to deliver financial education courses. Currently, however, little empirical evidence has been published on the effects of in-school financial education on financial capability in adolescents. This pilot study brought together a randomized experimental design, a combination of local and non-local financial education courses, comprehensive measurements, and multi-level structural equation modeling for data analysis to evaluate the outcomes of a financial education project in a representative sample of Hong Kong adolescents. Results demonstrated that our financial intervention made a positive impact on objective financial knowledge and financial self-efficacy but a negative one on financial behaviors. Positive effects on financial self-efficacy were stronger in male adolescents than in females. Our findings represent an important contribution to the literature regarding financial education at the secondary school level. Copyright © 2019 Springer Nature B.V.

This study examined the interrelationships among playfulness, prosocial skills, and school readiness of Hong Kong kindergarten children across time. Participants were 106 local children (55.6% boys, mean age = 60.0 months) and their parents and teachers. At time 1, parents reported their child’s age, gender, and playfulness. Six months later at time 2, teachers reported children’s prosocial skills and school readiness. The structural equation model revealed that children’s playfulness at time 1 significantly predicted their prosocial skills at time 2, and that their prosocial skills and school readiness at time 2 were positively associated. The indirect relationship between playfulness and school readiness as mediated through prosocial skills was significant, whereas the direct relationship was non-significant. These findings suggest that children’s playfulness may contribute to school readiness by fostering prosocial skills. Practically, results highlight the utility of promoting children’s playfulness and prosocial skills to support their formal school transition. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Computational thinking (CT) practices is a critical cognitive tool for students to overcome challenges in this technological era. Few studies investigated CT practices from a development perspective. A two-year intervention was implemented in 30 intervention and 22 control schools in Hong Kong to promote CT education (T1baseline: N = 13,056; T2: N = 16,367; and T3: N = 15,269). Senior primary students (grades 4 to 6) around 8–12 years old were targeted. Among them, 34% were girls at T1baseline. Their learning progression of cognitive development was assessed with a CT practices test. Data were analyzed using item response analysis. Learning trajectories of CT practices were modeled to understand how students’ cognitive development differed between schools. Insights of findings were discussed in bringing CT practices to life. Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Proficiency in speaking is one of the hallmarks of communicative competence, which is currently a key goal of many FL education curricula. The present study examined how FL-related emotions (anxiety, boredom, and enjoyment), speaking motivation, and spoken input beyond the classroom (IBC) related to young EFL learners’ speaking proficiency. One hundred and ten Grades 3–4 EFL learners from four primary schools in Hong Kong completed a questionnaire and a speaking test. Their parents/guardians also attended individual interviews. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation, multiple regression, and path analysis. Overall, all three emotions were interrelated, but none was connected directly to speaking proficiency. Enjoyment had the strongest correlation with speaking motivation and proficiency, and it was predictive of proficiency only via speaking motivation (i.e., full mediation). IBC showed both significant direct and indirect predictive pathways towards proficiency. To our knowledge, this is the first study that has examined the interrelationships among the three emotions, speaking motivation, spoken IBC, and speaking proficiency holistically with young FL learners. Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Researchers examined the cultural hybridization of Froebel’s principles of autonomy, play, and relationship-based care, which feature prominently in infant-toddler care and education in US, UK, New Zealand, and Hong Kong curriculum/pedagogical frameworks. How are these principles enacted worldwide? Methods: Reviewed data from researchers’ existing larger study that included video-cued, multi-vocal (teachers, families, and researchers) analyses, to identify examples of these principles in action in ‘day-in-the-life’ videos of one-year-olds in each country. Findings: The way Froebel’s principles were enacted differed in specific ways found connected to each country’s broader culture, with Hong Kong demonstrating this most distinctly. Significance: Widely endorsed Froebelian principles are adopted but hybridized to represent each country’s uniqueness and to contribute to transmission of cultural values and norms. Copyright © 2023 AERA.

Humility as a virtue has been receiving increasing scholarly attention in the fields of philosophy and psychology (particularly positive psychology). While humility is regarded as important for knowledge production, acquisition, and transmission, philosophical and psychological inquiries indicate that the concept of humility can significantly differ across social arenas and cultural traditions. However, despite its clear educational importance, humility as a moral concept is seldom explored empirically in relation to teaching and learning. This study seeks to extend our cross-cultural understanding of humility and its association with teaching and learning practices in schools. Based on semi-structured interviews with teachers in local and international secondary schools in Hong Kong, we comparatively explore how teachers understand the concept of humility and how their understandings shape their teaching practices in classrooms. This comparative approach can provide a deeper understanding of the differences and similarities between different teachers’ understandings of humility as an important moral concept. Furthermore, this study will shed light on how educators’ moral concepts are associated with their pedagogical practices. This will provide an alternative lens to reflect on and improve teaching and learning practices, and teacher-student relations in schools. Copyright © 2021 The Education University of Hong Kong.

Against the backdrop of rapidly growing attention to FL learners’ emotions, the present study investigated learners’ classroom emotions (anxiety, boredom, and enjoyment), literacy outcomes (reading and writing proficiency), and a largely neglected factor in FL emotions research to date – maternal education as a proxy for socio-economic status. One hundred and ninety-one Grade-three/four EFL learners from Hong Kong participated in this study. These learners completed a questionnaire about their classroom emotions, and reading and writing tests. Their parents/guardians attended individual interviews in which the highest level of maternal education was elicited. Overall, the results showed that maternal education and enjoyment were significantly associated with reading and writing proficiency. The contribution of maternal education to literacy outcomes was partially mediated by enjoyment, but not anxiety and boredom. The importance of maternal education and enjoyment are highlighted and discussed. Copyright © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about an unprecedented challenge to global education. It has changed how many of us, especially our children, learn and gain valuable insights into parenting needs concerning online learning, and digital literacy is more important than ever. However, the digital divide and educational equity have been sharpened amidst the ongoing pandemic; people without access to Information and Communications Technologies are even more disadvantaged than before. In Hong Kong, remote learning has increased exponentially since the outbreak in early 2020, and it has been continued under the “new normal”- which students and educators need to manage and integrate technology into their everyday teaching and learning cycle. When it is specifically essential to ensure equal and inclusive access to remote learning for students, parental involvement should arouse more prominent attention. The emerging problem has been shifting from the opportunity of access to technology to digitally illiterate parents. Hence, this paper will discuss the long-lasting issue between the digital divide and education inequality in Hong Kong, and recommend bridging the digital divide should focus more on nurturing parental digital citizenship and literacy so they can appropriately facilitate the co-learning process with their children in this “new normal” era effectively. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.