The COVID‐19 pandemic has triggered an unexpected digital revolution, speeding up universities' digital transformation worldwide. It has brought heavy disruptions to travel and mobility worldwide, but it drives the opportunity for hosting region‐wide or even international academic exchanges through learning programs, workshops, and conferences via an alternative online mode. This study reports on a case study of a 1‐month online aviation learning program that engaged 108 university students from Mainland China and Hong Kong during the lockdown. At first, we first recruited students in Hong Kong; however, the program registration was unsatisfactory. This could be attributed to the students' perceived future aviation career prospects and readiness of emergent remote teaching during the pandemic. In the program, we designed an alternative blended learning approach to attract students to sustain their aviation learning. First, we transformed the activities from face‐to‐face (F2F) to online settings using digital technologies including flight simulation and virtual visits in a web‐conferencing environment. Second, we extended the reach of the event and attracted a larger audience in the neighbouring regions in Mainland China. It turned out that we could successfully recruit 108 students from 20 cities. In the end, students' interviews and motivational surveys indicated that this online learning experience could effectively enhance students' knowledge and motivational gain. Since the government has relaxed the policy of homeschooling, we organised two F2F meetings for students in Hong Kong to connect them together. This blended mode of teaching favoured the students in Hong Kong who showed a greater motivation than those in Mainland China. Furthermore, follow‐up interviews for teachers revealed how they invest in new technological equipment and knowledge to support the radical changes. Overall, the virtual event eliminates geographical barriers which successfully motivate

There is a strong need for educators to change the way they conduct aviation education to bring up future professionals in the industry. To cope with the COVID-19 challenge, creative online distance learning approaches become necessary. This article shows how an online lab approach offers social and cognitive support for engineering students to sustain their learning. A series of learning activities including flight simulation and virtual tours were held in an online lab setting by aviation professionals and lecturers at a university in Hong Kong to 35 undergraduate engineering students. The online lab encouraged students to apply knowledge into practice and develop their theoretical and conceptual knowledge through activities. Workshops focusing on aviation laboratory education aimed at students’ development of aviation theoretical and technical knowledge, collaborative skills, field-specific, and practical skills. A mixed research method was employed with the use of a motivational survey, teachers’ observation, and semi-structured interviews to understand students’ learning perceptions. This study found that the online laboratory activities could effectively motivate students to learn about aviation and improve their aviation knowledge cognitively and socially. It is recommended for online engineering educators to use lab technologies to teach aviation and related disciplines for future career preparation. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.

Hong Kong was one of the first places hit with the COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020 and has since responded with several periods of full or partial school suspension, during which teaching and learning often occurred remotely using digital means. During this time, collecting research data and testing students have become more difficult than before. In this article, we report on a large-scale digital literacy (DL) performance assessment in Hong Kong that had to be conducted in a mix of modes--onsite, online supported, and online self-directed--during the pandemic. We discuss the administrative and methodological challenges of assessing DL, and explore preliminary data on the associations between student performance and the assessment mode adopted. We further discuss potential implications, including for high-stakes testing, and make recommendations for assessing DL remotely. Copyright © 2022 Wiley.

Internationalisation has become a worldwide trend in Higher Education in the rapidly changing globalised competitive market. Universities are pressurised to develop internationalised strategy to build legitimacy and reputation within the knowledge-based economy. An isomorphic tendency has been identified of universities mimicking successful models. Among a wide range of strategic tools, the organisational legitimacy theory allows universities to focus on exploiting their resources and capability to position idiosyncratically against competitors. This study applies Stensaker et al.'s legitimacy framework on cognitive, moral and pragmatic perspectives, to investigate how a university adopts an internationalisation strategy as one of the approaches to achieve the overall institutional objectives. Drawing on a case study of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), the paper explores how the university internationalises in a differentiated position to acquire legitimacy in specific local, regional and global contexts. PolyU strategically emphasises its pragmatic value to connect with its stakeholders in a globalised dimension. The finding broadly supports the notion of comprehensive internationalisation; that internationalisation strategy should be incorporated into other functional strategies to enhance a 'global' experience. The analysis of the strength and weaknesses of PolyU's internationalisation strategies illustrates the challenges non-western universities are facing. This finding, while preliminary, raises the significance of local elements in internationalisation strategies, under the influence of soft power and constraints of organisational capabilities. Copyright © 2022 Springer.

This paper reports significant findings from an exploratory investigation of factors influencing kindergarten teachers' perceptions of holistic early childhood education (HECE) following the release of a recent policy document relating to Early Childhood Education by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. A comprehensive four-page survey questionnaire was completed by 165 teachers, in 22 Kindergartens across three Districts in Hong Kong. The questionnaire sought responses on demographics (including spiritual well-being); six aspects of ECE detailed in the HKSAR document; teachers' expectations of HECE; and their perceptions of parental involvement in their young children's development. This study revealed that kindergarten teachers' spiritual well-being was a key demographic factor contributing to their expectations of holistic early childhood education. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.

Background: The current study investigates school contextual effects on students' academic self-concept and achievement, that is, peer socioeconomic effect and big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE), in four Nordic education systems (i.e., Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) and selected Chinese education systems (Hong Kong and Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang). The two school contextual effects are studied simultaneously to negate the confounding effects of student and school socioeconomic status (SES), academic self-concept and academic achievement. The study focuses on the following research questions: (1) Are there differences in the between-school variation in school SES composition, academic self-concept and reading literacy across the Nordic and selected Chinese education systems? (2) What are the sizes of peer SES and BFLPE in the Nordic and Chinese education systems? and (3) Are there any differences that can be observed between the 2000 and 2018 data for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in the first two questions for Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and Hong Kong? Methods: Using PISA 2000 and 2018 data from Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Hong Kong and Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang (in 2018 only), a multiple-group two-level structural equation modelling was applied to estimate the school contextual effect. Results: The current study indicated that school academic and socioeconomic segregation intensified over the two decades in most of the studied countries. This finding lays the groundwork for understanding the two schools' contextual effects. School SES compositions positively affected students' academic achievement, while average school achievement negatively affected students' academic self-concept. Given that students' academic and socioeconomic composition has become more homogeneous within schools, the contextual effects were more pronounced. However, variations across diverse education systems were also notable. Conclusions

This study examined the effectiveness of an experiential learning-based integrated policy advocacy education model in Hong Kong, a partially democratic and non-Western society. The model incorporated guest lectures, a mock hearing, a site visit, and an advocacy project. A mixed methods evaluation involving 144 students in quantitative surveys and 9 students in focus groups demonstrated that this model increased students' levels of political activity, political efficacy, competence in advocacy, and their intention to take future advocacy action despite what some have perceived to be a pessimistic and ambivalent environment for advocacy in Hong Kong. Interviews with six advocates also suggest that an ideal advocacy education model should incorporate theoretical teaching, social justice values, sharing experiences of field experts, practice, and action. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.

This study compares and contrasts teachers' and students' perceptions of online teaching and learning during the COVID-pandemic in higher education using the co-orientation model. Data were collected from 145 students and 31 teachers in two Hong Kong higher education institutions. The findings show that teachers were generally more negative about online teaching and learning than students, but such negative views should be reconsidered as students positively evaluated teachers' efforts to various degrees. It is suggested that during future online learning experiences (1) teachers and students set up expectations together to evaluate online interactions, (2) teachers should not be overly concerned about the potential embarrassment of using camera for class activities, and (3) teachers pay more attention to feedback delivery. Understanding these gaps will provide teachers with insights into more strategic communication and planning to manage the expectations and optimise the online experience for both parties. Copyright © 2022 Elsevier.

With the poverty rate of Hong Kong reaching 23.6%, the development and well-being of children from economically disadvantaged families becomes a concern for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. Children with lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds tend to have poorer development in early language and literacy skills, which may then adversely affect their later academic achievement and school success. This development gap between low- and middle-SES children may begin in kindergarten and persist throughout their formal education and beyond. This may be particularly true for ethnic minority groups, which often have to deal with not only economic pressure but also other stressors, including prejudice, discrimination, and cultural adaption. Composed of mostly Southeast Asians, ethnic minority groups constitute about 8% of the Hong Kong population. Importantly, the number of ethnic minority children continues to rise, underscoring the importance of increasing teachers’ multicultural competence and promoting the cultural integration among students in school. In this talk, the speaker will provide an overview about the language and literacy development among children from low-SES and ethnic minority families. The speaker will also explain how we may support these children by promoting culturally responsive teaching in kindergartens, providing professional training for early childhood educators and multicultural teaching assistants, and developing culturally responsive education benchmarks. Copyright © 2022 PECERA-HK.

Background: Early childhood is a critical period during which patterns of movement behaviors are formed. The World Health Organization had endorsed guidelines for physical activity, sedentary behavior and sleep over a 24-h time period, which had been adopted by the Center for Health Protection of Hong Kong. This paper reports on stakeholder engagements that were conducted to inform the design of strategies to disseminate the guidelines in early childhood education (ECE) settings. Methods: Using a mixed-methods study design, we sought to (a) assess the stakeholders' levels of awareness and knowledge of the Hong Kong movement guidelines for young children and (b) identify the factors that influence the uptake of the said guidelines. We conducted an online survey of early childhood education teachers (N =314), twelve focus groups involving teachers (N = 18) and parents (N = 18), and individual interviews of key informants (N = 7) and domestic workers who provide care for preschool-aged children (N = 7). Descriptive statistics were used for the quantitative data, and thematic analysis was performed on the qualitative data using an inductive and semantic approach following a realist framework. Findings: Our findings show that teachers were aware of the movement guidelines for young children, but their knowledge of the specific guidelines was deficient; parents and domestic workers had limited awareness and knowledge of the guidelines. Uptake of the movement guidelines is enabled by parent engagement, activities in the ECE centers, home-school cooperation, and community activities for children. The challenges include the time poverty of parents, local curriculum requirements, limited physical spaces, social values, and pandemic-related restrictions. Conclusion: We recommend that dissemination strategies in the ECE context should deliver knowledge content and support stakeholders in mitigating the challenges associated with time, space, and social conditions. Copyright © 2022