This study applies Activity Theory to investigate how English as a foreign language (EFL) students prompt generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools during short story writing. Sixty-seven Hong Kong secondary school students created their own generative-AI tools using open-source language models and wrote short stories with them. The study collected and analyzed the students' generative-AI tools, short stories, and written reflections on their conditions or purposes for prompting. The research identified three main themes regarding the purposes for which students' prompt generative-AI tools during short story writing: a lack of awareness of purposes, overcoming writer's block, and developing, expanding, and improving the story. The study also identified common characteristics of students' activity systems, including the sophistication of their generative-AI tools, the quality of their stories, and their school's overall academic achievement level, for their prompting of generative-AI tools for the three purposes during short story writing. The study's findings suggest that teachers should be aware of students' purposes for prompting generative-AI tools to provide tailored instructions and scaffolded guidance. The findings may also help designers provide differentiated instructions for users at various levels of story development when using a generative-AI tool. Copyright © 2025 Taylor & Francis.

Educators and researchers are becoming interested in cultivating computational thinking (CT). However, in the Hong Kong context, CT-related studies regarding young children are rarely found. The present study aimed to use an unplugged digital arts activity to examine the CT concepts that children performed and document their CT developmental trajectories. Constructionism theory highlights the importance of children engaging in hands-on activities and developing independent thinking skills. Meanwhile, social constructivism theory emphasizes the role of teachers as scaffolders, supporting children in their learning processes. A sample of children (N = 27, aged 3-6) was recruited from a nursery school in Hong Kong to participate in an animation art workshop. A total of 540 min of video data was recorded and collected for content analysis. The teaching team (N = 4) for this workshop were invited to write up their reflective journals, capturing their observations of the scaffolding strategies employed and their perspectives on how children at various levels demonstrated their understanding of CT concepts throughout the entire process. Within an analytical framework based on powerful ideas, the findings from the observations and field notes revealed that the children's CT concepts and practices could be linked with the CT conceptual framework. In this study, older children showed a sophisticated competency and a more complicated mind structure in terms of the CT concept. Our findings highlight the importance of designing an age-appropriate curriculum for nurturing the computational thinking of young children through animation art. Copyright © 2024 Springer.

Introduction This study explores the motivators to use learning management systems (LMS) adopted and used in eLearning by Hong Kong universities among Mainland Chinese postgraduate students amid COVID-19 pandemic.Methods An adapted and extended UTUAT2 model was first proposed and tested using the structural equation modeling approach. Through self-report online questionnaire, data were collected in 2022 from 352 Mainland Chinese postgraduate students of nine universities in Hong Kong. The reliability and validity of the data were tested using the confirmatory factor analysis, followed by path analysis to test the hypotheses in the proposed model.Results The study revealed nine motivators which explained 50% of the variance in LMS use intention. Trust (0.204), instructor characteristics (0.202), performance expectancy (0.181), and facilitating conditions (0.181) were identified as strong motivators of behavioral intention. Other factors such as effort expectancy (0.148), learning value (0.118) and social influence (0.115) also had significant positive effects on LMS use intention. Habit (0.014) and hedonic motivation (-0.016) had no significant direct effect on it.Discussion These findings provide inspirations for educational stakeholders to promote the acceptance of LMS platforms among distance and online learners who adopt the cyberspace as the only means of learning. They also offer insights about instructor recruitment and evaluation methods. Copyright © 2024 Frontiers Media SA.

PurposeThis study aims to explore various conceptions of global citizenship education (GCE) and pedagogies among frontline Chinese Hong Kong secondary school teachers under the onset of a new political climate of conservative nationalism.Design/methodology/approachIt utilised interview findings with a purposive sample of about 22 experienced secondary school teachers in 2019, which was shortly before the city was caught in huge waves of protests. Interviewees come from different demographics, such as subsidy types of schools and school sponsoring bodies and admit students of different socio-economic status and academic capabilities.FindingsThe findings reveal both liberal and nationalistic orientations on knowledge and values of GCE, including sustainability, in recent school education, and the use of discussion and experiential learning for teaching GCE.Research limitations/implicationsA conceptual framework is developed for further research on teaching GCE in different cultural contexts. Developing pedagogies to instil in learners the values, attitudes and behaviours that support responsible global citizenship should become an international research agenda.Originality/valueThe analysis offers insightful views on what, why and how these teachers teach GCE. The authors also construct a framework of teachers' values and teaching beliefs that cultivate global citizens based on the research findings. This framework can inform school leaders, curriculum planners and teacher trainers in developing a more substantial pedagogical framework for GCE. Copyright © 2025 Emerald.

This classroom-based study investigates how engagement with written corrective feedback (WCF) through the completion of error logs is related to improvements in linguistic accuracy in new pieces of writing. Conducted over eight weeks in a Hong Kong secondary school English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom with 20 student participants, the study involved learners completing error logs after receiving metalinguistic WCF on their written texts. The error logs required learners to record each error and type, their corrections, and explanations for each correction. Using a pre-test, post-test design, the study compared learners' linguistic accuracy before and after the error log intervention, and explored the relationship between accuracy gains and successful error log completion. Learners' attitudes towards using error logs were also assessed through questionnaires and interviews. The findings indicated that linguistic accuracy significantly improved from pre-test to post-test, there was a significant positive correlation between accuracy gains and level of success in explaining corrections, and that learners generally held positive attitudes towards using error logs. The positive perceptions stemmed mainly from learners' recognition that the error logs raised their awareness of common errors and fostered their linguistic development. Copyright © 2024 Elsevier.

PurposeDespite the growing interest in the applicability and value of educational research for improving educational policy and practice, few studies have demonstrated how English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teachers apply research findings in their second language (L2) teaching. This paper reports on a study in which four Hong Kong ESL teachers were given research findings about L2 vocabulary teaching and learning and how they engaged in professional development (PD) sessions with a researcher specialising in vocabulary teaching and learning to make sense of the research findings.MethodologyIn addition to the dialogues between the researcher and teachers, individual semi-structured interviews with the participating teachers were audio-recorded and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.FindingsOur analysis revealed how ESL teachers made sense of the research literature to inform their L2 vocabulary teaching practices by (1) bridging the gap between the school culture and practices and empirical research findings; (2) connecting the researcher's explanations of the theoretical literature to real-life pedagogical practices; and (3) explaining how research findings can be applied to future classroom teaching and learning.Originality/ValueBased on the findings, we argue that professional dialogues between teachers and a researcher can facilitate the creation of a dialogic space for teachers to deploy their knowledge, including but not limited to pedagogical knowledge and beliefs, prior language learning experiences, and teaching experiences, to better understand research findings, thereby challenging their existing thinking and teaching. Such a dialogic space provides an opportunity for teachers to reflect on their pedagogical practices, which can promote quality teaching. Copyright © 2024 Routledge .

This study investigated the feasibility and effectiveness of using a flipped classroom (FC) approach to combine self-regulated learning (SRL) instruction and out-of-class eLearning activities in a two-year reading intervention program to facilitate students' learning of classical Chinese reading. A total of 352 junior secondary students from three Hong Kong secondary schools participated in the study voluntarily. Using a quasi-experimental design, students from each school were assigned to one of the following conditions: SRL instruction plus out-of-class eLearning (EG-I+E), SRL instruction only (EG-I), and control (CG). Both quantitative methods, including reading tests and student questionnaires, and qualitative methods, including teacher and student interviews, were adopted to collect data for the program evaluation. Findings indicate that after implementing the intervention program, EG students perceived significant changes in their classical Chinese lessons to be more SRL-oriented. While all treatment groups significantly improved their performance in the reading post-tests, only EG students significantly improved their strategy use, self-efficacy, and intrinsic motivation. Although both EG groups had similar improvements in all outcome measures, teachers and students of EG-I+E opined that the eLearning component of FC facilitated teachers' implementation of the intervention and students' strategy learning and motivation. Findings are discussed to shed light on applying SRL instruction and FC in a school subject long dominated by teacher-centered instruction. Copyright © 2024 Springer .

Students' digital reading literacy has attracted increasing attention in the current digital era; however, few studies have been conducted to explore how factors at different levels influence students' digital reading achievement. Grounded by socio-ecological theory, the current comprehensively explored the relative importance of 24 individual, microsystem, and mesosystem variables in predicting English digital reading achievement through the machine learning approach (i.e. random forest regression). The secondary data were retrieved from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018, including 7,703 15-year-old students from Macao, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Our study identified 12 key factors that best predicted East Asian students' English digital reading achievement. Among them, students' socioeconomic status, subject-related ICT use during lessons, and interest in ICT ranked as the top three factors. The disparities in the roles played by disciplinary climate, gender, being bullied, immigrant status, and home language among the three economies were discussed. Copyright © 2024 Routledge.

This article presents the results of a study conducted in collaboration with two universities - one in Lapland (Finland) and the other in Hong Kong (China) - during the development of an international university course on global media education. The objective of the study was to examine international students' changing conceptual understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) literacy as part of the course. The need for this study arose from the recent rapid spread of AI across industries, which has connected human learning to machine learning. This requires competence in AI to contribute to future society. Five hours of online lectures on AI literacy were delivered during two workshops to students (N = 29) from 13 countries with no or limited prior knowledge of the subject in 2021 and 2022. The participants filled out pre- and post-workshop quantitative questionnaires and wrote diaries about their learning process, the development of their understanding of AI-literacy concepts, and their thoughts on the pedagogical approaches used. The quantitative data were analysed using a paired-samples t-test, while the qualitative data were examined using thematic-content analysis. The findings show that the students' knowledge of AI and their awareness of the importance of AI literacy and media education increased significantly. Further research is needed so that a more appropriate curriculum can be designed for them. We outline some key activities that offer interactive and participatory ways to learn AI in order to assist educators in planning and delivering AI-literacy courses as part of cross-cultural media education. Copyright © 2024 Elsevier.

To promote computational thinking in mathematics education, Scratch is used to foster students' computational thinking and mathematical understanding. However, students face challenges in block-based programming environments, such as having low motivation, high anxiety, and cognitive loads. This study combined the pedagogical values of Geogebra and Scratch to enhance primary students' learning outcomes in computational thinking. We investigated two interventions (solely Scratch and Scratch combined with Geogebra) among 72 Hong Kong fifth-grade students. We found that students who learned computational thinking using Scratch and Geogebra had higher motivation, perceived ability, and lower cognitive load than those who only used Scratch. However, students' anxiety had no significant difference between the two groups. In addition, Students faced more challenges and gained less positive learning outcomes in Scratch group. The use of Geogebra can better complement Scratch in teaching computational thinking in primary mathematics classrooms. We identified the potential of using Geogebra to visualize mathematical knowledge and help students apply what they have learned in block-based languages. Pedagogical implications are provided for instructional design and teaching strategies of computational thinking integrated with STEM education. Copyright © 2025 Elsevier.