The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a tremendous impact on the pedagogy and learning experience of students in sub-degree education sector of Hong Kong. Online learning has become the “sole” solution to deal with student learning challenges during this chaotic period. In this study, we explore online learning for sub-degree students by using a community of inquiry (CoI). As such, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted on survey data gathered from 287 sub-degree students from the business and engineering disciplines. Results indicated that the network speed for online education determines the perceived cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence of students, whereas gender and academic disciplines of students are not moderating factors that create a significant difference in perceived cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence of students. Our study findings for creating and sustaining a purposeful online learning community are highlighted. Copyright © 2021 Lau, Tang, Chau, Vyas, Sandoval-Hernandez and Wong.

COVID-19 and the shift to online teaching necessitated a change in approach for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teachers in preparing their students for university studies. This study explored how EAP instructors coped with and adapted their provision for emergency remote teaching. The study was conducted at an English-medium university in Hong Kong and a qualitative case study approach was adopted. The results revealed two overarching themes of opportunity and challenge. While the sudden shift to online teaching forced innovation and fostered collaborative learning and feedback, teachers experienced difficulties in communicating with students and monitoring their learning. The study voices teacher perspectives in delivering EAP courses online and highlights important implications for the successful delivery of future online EAP provisions. Copyright © 2021 by the authors.

This paper intends to study the beginning stages oftechnology adoption during distance learning in early childhood education (ECE) and focus on digital tools and equipment used during this period. We circulated a questionnaire to a representative group of teachers, seeking to find out more about teacher and school preparedness, strategies to provide distance education, and teachers' experiences while making this transition. Findings from survey results and interviews from forty-three teachers indicate that technological factors are strongly linked to school readiness. Teachers do not have pedagogical techniques for the current distance education learning environment. The pedagogical implications of these specialised tools were discussed. Four different pedagogical practices are central for distance education in a crisis and several difficulties encountered during the process. Although being prepared to ensure the continuity of education was challenging, schools and teachers found ways to overcome the obstacles. Results build on previously reported findings regarding school closure during virus outbreaks, and they may serve as guidance for teachers and school leaders as they move into technology adoption in ECE education. This research can also help create emergency response educational plans for kindergartens and provide an excellent historical record. Copyright © 2021 The 16th International Conference on Computer Science and Education.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to widespread change in people's lives across the world. Indeed, such change is especially evident in the education sector, where this global phenomenon has arguably triggered some of history's most significant advancements. In this study, we explore how the early childhood education sector in Hong Kong has coped with schooling during this period. Furthermore, we investigate the extent to which players in Hong Kong's early childhood education scene had to adjust in light of dynamically changing local government guidelines and why that has led to long-term improvements. To derive meaningful conclusions from this study, we use a mixed-methods approach that relies on data collected from surveys, interviews, and case studies relevant to the topic at hand. This data is then analysed, and themes are formed through coding. We also explore teachers' feelings, technology adoption, and examples from practice to determine how schools have supported young children's education. The research demonstrates how early childhood education and care centres innovatively provide education during a crisis. Traces of success in making teaching and learning possible and meaningful are visible, even with children of a young age. Consequently, this research yields key lessons about ECE learning and teaching during crises. Copyright © 2021 The International Academic Forum.

Since the first class suspension, announced in Feb 2020 due to the prevalence of Covid-19, many schools, including all kindergartens, primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions, have redirected their face-to-face learning to online learning to strive for 'suspending classes without suspending learning'. The physical closure has switched face-to-face learning to learning at home, which has given rise to a new role for parents and guardians in children's learning. As a significant stakeholder in the education process, parent-child experiences are among the most influential driving factors contributing to the success of any educational reform, and hence should be analysed to inform future decisions. This research sought to examine parental issues experienced by the parents of children engaged in distance learning. Parents agreed with the policy to keep the learning going, but they also highlighted the challenges they faced while supporting their children's home learning. Parents explained that they were experiencing difficulties balancing their responsibilities, learner involvement, accessibility, and learning outcomes. Some notable implications and recommendations for future implementation of distance learning or blended learning were discovered as a result of the study. Parental views towards the Hong Kong kindergartens' readiness to adopt technology in emergency distance learning adoption were also discussed. Copyright © 2021 The International Academic Forum (IAFOR).

COVID-19 has forced universities around the world to suspend in-person teaching and adopt emergency remote teaching (ERT). To compensate for the suspension of in-person teaching, many universities mandated that teachers utilise video-conferencing software (VCS) to deliver synchronous online lessons conducted through VCS. This study explored the impact of ERT and the requirement to teach synchronously online through VCS on the motivation of university teachers at a major university in Hong Kong. In-depth interviews were conducted with nine teachers who had completed a full semester of ERT. The findings suggest that the teachers fell into two distinct groups. Teachers in one group (n = 5) seemed to thrive, reporting mainly positive effects of ERT on their motivation, while the others (n = 4) seemed to be just surviving, reported mainly negative effects. For members of the “thriving” group, the semester reinvigorated their teaching and provided them with new skills; members of the “surviving” group, by contrast, questioned their ability to teach, found it hard to build a rapport with learners, felt isolated, and struggled to find job satisfaction. The study concludes with a discussion of measures that could help university teachers to maintain their motivation during online instruction. Copyright © 2021 De La Salle University.

This study explored emotions and self-regulatory learning in postgraduate students, forced to transition to emergency remote teaching, at a Hong Kong university after the start of the academic semester. Self-regulation is a critical factor for successful online learning, and emotions are important antecedents of self-regulated learning. The study adopted a two-phase research design, with an initial online questionnaire (n = 52) followed by semi-structured interviews (n = 16) to gain a rich and holistic understanding of students' experiences. Our findings indicate that: (1) locating a suitable location to attend online classes and sharing problems with classmates were the two most frequently self-regulatory learning strategies employed by students; (2) students experienced some enjoyment attending online classes but experienced increased pressure and time commitment to complete assigned work; (3) students found online learning to lack a sense of community, making it challenging to interact with classmates. The findings suggest teachers need to incorporate various synchronous and asynchronous collaborative activities, and they need to increase their own and students' presence online to motivate and facilitate effective teaching and learning. Copyright © 2021 by the authors.

Moral education is not a new concept in universities; however, university students’ firsthand learning experience and valuation of moral education have not been fully explored. As part of a teaching and learning study conducted in two undergraduate classes in a Hong Kong university, this study explores the university students’ perceptions of learning moral education. Data were mainly collected through student interviews and their reflective journals. Most students supported the learning of moral education. They asserted that moral education has a lifelong nature; thus, they should learn it in universities. The study reveals that moral education can facilitate the university students’ personal and social betterments, showing the intrinsic and instrumental values of moral education. This small-scale case supplements the literature on the understanding of the development of moral education in higher education. This study also reflects the necessity to rethink the moral aim and the moral education curriculum of higher education. Copyright © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Academic development (AD) is increasingly being oriented towards an integrated approach to academic practice (AP), given arguments for the importance of integrating research, learning, and teaching. Given the complex and evolving character of AD as a profession, it is important to understand the conceptions of AD held by academic developers, who can play a key role in supporting conditions for such integration. This comparative case study explores conceptions of AD and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) held by academic developers at two universities in Hong Kong and Singapore, and examines the extent to which these conceptions support an integrated AP. The findings show that not all conceptions recognise the importance of integration; moreover, though in both cases aspects of integration come to the fore, there are gaps that militate against a fuller understanding of integrating teaching and research. The study has implications for future AD practice and raises questions about using SoTL as a means of fostering teaching and research integration. Copyright ©Routledge.

Purpose: Learning to do research has been understudied in the context of professional development in postgraduate programs. This exploratory study investigated the agency and experiences of five Chinese students who learned to design their research project in a Master of Education program at an English-medium university in Hong Kong SAR. Design/Approach/Methods: We obtained the data from semi-structured interviews and documents to establish data triangulation. Findings: The findings revealed that (1) the students' agency in research design and proposal writing was associated with their personal/professional backgrounds, (2) their English proficiency affected their agency in the proposal writing, (3) the supervisors' feedback would stimulate students' agency in changing/refining their research design, and (4) ineffective supervision and learning resources would impede students' achievement of agency on their way to creating a robust research design. Originality/Value: This study adds empirical evidence to the field of research training through the lens of learner agency. It demonstrates the applicability of using the ecological framework of agency in theoretically interpreting the contextual facilitators and constraints in making postgraduate students active agents. Copyright ©Sage Publications Ltd.