This journal article reports the findings of a ten-week project on cooperative learning. The aim of the project was to enhance the social skills of children aged between 10 to 12. Students were provided with a variety of experiences of working in groups aiming at fostering their task-oriented and person-oriented skills. Evidence of social growth was observed. Students also showed more willingness to interact with their peers, even with those who were not of their close friends. The authors further noticed that there were marked improvements in students' interpersonal relationship as well as classroom behavior, especially among those previously isolated and "difficult" students.

文章指出，教統會《第四號報告書》（1990）提議把三個本來獨立的科目：健康教育科、社會科及科學科綜合為常識科。但是，這個把小學科學科歸入常識科的嘗試，面對不少困難，尤其當教師在任教與科學有關的課題時。這些問題不但影響香港小學常識科教與學的質素，更會影響香港小學生的科學素養及阻礙他們發展思考的能力。

This paper reports the findings of a study which investigates primary school teachers' receptivity to changes in the Target Oriented Curriculums (TOC) and General Studies (GS) in Hong Kong. In the study, survey was employed. Findings reveal that primary school teachers hold positive attitudes towards GS, but their behavioral intentions towards implementing TOC tend to be negative. Further, multivariate analyses show that teachers' perceptions of the two curriculum changes are significantly different.

This paper reports a study that aims to identify teachers' concerns in terms of self concerns, task concerns and impact concerns. The authors indicate that the data are correlated with the different academic backgrounds and experiences of teachers and that the findings are significant for reconsidering curriculum implementation and for designing teacher education programme.

Review of technology education in Western countries in this paper suggests five "basic objectives of school technology" in Hong Kong schools. The author argues that there should be more emphasis on the learning of technology in the General Studies curriculum for primary school pupils.

To the author, children's literature can be employed as a valuable resource for teaching social studies. Thus, an annotated bibliography of children's books suitable for use in the social studies classroom is presented.

This paper examines Alice Miel's ideas on social learning. According to the author, Miel perceives that the ultimate goal of schooling is the development of democratic behavior among children; hence, she stresses on the promotion of democracy and diversity in the elementary social studies classroom. The author points out that her work contributes to the development of the theory and practice of democratic social learning in elementary schools and is viewed as historical antecedent to research studies in this area.

This study examines teacher receptivity to the curriculum change embodied in the new environmental education guidelines in Hong Kong. A questionnaire survey, based on a 'receptivity to change' instrument, was distributed and case studies conducted. The analyses revealed that such variables as the perceived non-monetary cost-benefit of implementing the guidelines, perceived practicality, perceived school and other support, and issues of concern were predictors for teachers' behavioural intentions towards promoting environmental education. The qualitative part of the research also found that, in addition to the factor of perceived non-monetary costbenefit, the dominance of organizational factors may work to shape teachers' receptivity to environmental education.
[Copyright of Journal of Curriculum Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/002202700182871]

This study uses data collected from children in Hong Kong for the PIRLS international reading survey of 2001. A total of 4867 students aged 9 to 10 years from 147 primary schools were assessed. The aim of the study is to investigate the observed differences in comprehension skills displayed in the test results from students at three ability levels. Affective factors (attitudes and reading self-concept) are also compared for the three groups. Results indicate that the lower-ability students performed very poorly in all four processes of comprehension even at the most basic level of retrieval of facts. This weakness at the lower level greatly impaired the students' ability to operate at higher levels of comprehension involving inference, prediction, integration of ideas and critical evaluation. The weakest readers had extreme difficulty with test items requiring an extended written response. Even on simple multiple-choice items their performance was inferior to the average and higher-ability groups. Data from the supplementary questionnaires indicates that across all ability groups the children's attitude toward reading is correlated positively with reading achievement. However, data collected on the students' reading self-concept produced anomalous results that cast some doubt on the feasibility of using self-evaluation and self-report questionnaires with this age and cultural group. Practical implications from the findings are discussed.
[Copyright of Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19404150509546781]