The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003) assesses two emotion regulation (ER) strategies: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Researchers have used the ERQ in cross‐national studies, such as with participants in Hong Kong. There is inconsistency in psychometric equivalence data for the ERQ in Chinese among adults, and prior research in Hong Kong contradicted the ERQ's original factor structure (Matsumoto et al., 2008). The present study examined the factor structure, reliability and validity of a translated Traditional Chinese‐ERQ and the English‐ERQ with Hong Kong college students. Results revealed that both versions replicated the original two‐factor structure of the ERQ (Gross & John, 2003). Evidence of the measure's convergent, discriminant and predictive validity was obtained as well. Implications for cross‐cultural scale validation particularly with Hong Kong Chinese students are discussed. Copyright © 2021 Routledge.

This qualitative study investigates how migrant students from mainland China attending Hong Kong universities, as scale makers, negotiate and construct new scales and identities by utilizing their sociolinguistic resources, and how their scale making is related to such social categories as history and politics. The findings suggest that (re)scaling practices are beyond hierarchically-ordered indexical regularities, but develop and change as a shifting category, and can be considered a construct that allows for negotiation and creation of meanings. The participants show their agentiveness in defining a translocal space that advocates hybridity to their advantage. It is also found that the participants established new tacit norms and organized their identities with reference to experiences and attitudes local students lacked. Under the force or influence of political, social, economic, and interpersonal factors, rescaling practices were continuously in play, and norms were re-constructed by language users. Copyright © 2021 Routledge.

Despite the identified high effect size (d=.73) of feedback in affecting student achievement (Hattie & Timperley, 2007), recent feedback research has also found a wide range of factors pertaining to individuals’ feedback perceptions affect their feedback uptake and the effectiveness of feedback in learning (Van derKleij & Lipnevich, 2020). Among these factors, researchers have pointed out negative emotions induced by feedback may hinder feedback use if students do not have adaptive/optimal emotion regulation strategy (Gross, 2008). Based on the ecological feedback model that explicitly includes emotions in examining the complex process of feedback giving, receiving and using (Yang et al., 2014), this qualitative study aimed to explore: 1) what negative emotions university students may have upon receiving feedback, and 2) how students’ feedback orientation (i.e., perceived usefulness of feedback, self-efficacy, social awareness, and responsibility for using feedback to promote academic performance and achievement) relates to emotion regulation in the feedback context. In the COVID-19 pandemic period, individual-based interview (40 to 50 minutes) was conducted respectively through Zoom to seven university students at four different academic years in a Hong Kong university. Content and theme analyses revealed feedback orientation per se plays an influential and positive role in helping students regulate their negative emotions evoked by feedback. Specific roles of the four dimensions of FO also varied in these students’ emotion regulation. Implications of this qualitative study to both feedback and emotion regulation fields are discussed. Copyright © 2020 CHER-Hong Kong.

In two studies, we investigated how Hong Kong university students reacted to descriptions of China as multicultural vs. assimilatory, examining effects on emotions, prejudice toward Mainland Chinese, attitudes toward Hong Kong/China culture mixing, and cultural identities. Study 1 compared a multicultural priming condition to a control condition and found that the multiculturalism prime significantly reduced desire to socially distance from Mainland Chinese. Study 2 compared multiculturalism, assimilation, or control primes’ effects, and found that the multiculturalism prime, through increased positive emotions, indirectly reduced social distancing from Mainland Chinese and disgust toward culture mixing, and increased Chinese ethnic identity and multicultural identity styles; the assimilation prime had the opposite indirect effects through increasing negative emotions. Results show new evidence of the importance of emotion in how non-immigrant regional groups, who are both minority and majority culture members, react to different diversity models. Multicultural frames increased positive emotions, with downstream positive effects on both intergroup attitudes and integrated identities. Copyright © 2021 Ye and Buchtel.

Research Findings: This cross-sectional study examined the class- and child-level associations of social-emotional competence with behavioral and academic adjustment among Chinese kindergarten children and tested teacher collectivistic socialization goals as a moderator. Participants were 523 kindergarten children and their mothers and class teachers from Hong Kong, China. The mean age of children was 4.37 years (SD = 0.60), and 53% of them were boys. Using paper-and-pencil questionnaires, class teachers rated children’s social-emotional competence and their own socialization goals, and mothers rated children’s externalizing behaviors and school readiness and provided demographic information. Also, in structured interviews, children completed a Chinese word reading test. Multilevel models indicated that, controlling for child gender and age, mother age and education, and teacher experience of teaching, the class average of child social-emotional competence – which indicated the overall social-emotional climate of the classroom – was linked negatively to child externalizing behaviors and positively to child school readiness and Chinese word reading ability. Moreover, children who scored higher on social-emotional competence – compared to their own class average (i.e., their everyday companions) – scored lower on externalizing behaviors and higher on school readiness. There was no evidence of the moderating role of teacher socialization goals, however. Practice or Policy: Findings pointed to the utility of using class-wide initiatives to promote the overall classroom climate and using child-specific activities to promote individual social-emotional development. Copyright © 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The association between physical activity in achieving mental health benefits and subjective well-being is consistently identified by empirical research. The causation of a positive self-concept created by physical exercise is empirically supported by Sonstroem and Morgan’s (1988) exercise and self-esteem model (EXSEM). However, various drawbacks of maintaining high self-esteem have been identified; thus, the concept of self-compassion was conjectured to be a form of “true self-esteem.” Hence, the current study aimed to investigate the relationship between physical activity and self-compassion by examining the exercise and self-esteem model revised with self-compassion (EXSEM-SC). This study recruited secondary school students from Hong Kong using convenience sampling. The structural equation modeling (SEM) approach, including path analysis and multiple indicators, multiple causes (MIMIC) modeling, were used to reveal the results of the study. The results (n = 1097) indicated that the relationship between physical activity and self-compassion could be demonstrated by the EXSEM-SC, with a satisfactory goodness-of-fit index in the SEMs. The SEM also demonstrated the direct paths from physical activity to self-compassion and mental well-being, indicating the significant effect of physical activity on self-compassion. Copyright © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

The purpose of this study is to investigate into the possibility of utilizing socio-scientific issues as a vehicle to promote students’ metacognitive regulation, self-efficacy and conceptual understanding in an ecology classroom in Hong Kong. There has been little research to assess how these constructs are influenced by an issue-based inquiry classroom environment set in ecological context, and how these constructs interact with each other. The researcher has designed a metacognitive-rich environment for learning through a socio-scientific issue in a high school ecology classroom. Students’ perceptions about the metacognitive orientation of the classroom environment were assessed by the Metacognitive Orientation Learning Environment Scale (Science) to provide evidence for the validity of the lesson design in creating a metacognitive-rich environment. The effect of embedding explicit metacognitive tasks into a socio-scientific issue on students’ self-efficacy and metacognition were assessed through a quasi-experimental study using the Motivation Strategy for Learning Questionnaire and post-lesson individual interviews. 54 students from a Hong Kong long-established boy school participated in this study. The changes of the dependent variables under study were analyzed using an independent samples t-test and a 2x2 mixed-design analysis of variance to indicate the effect of this specially designed intervention in the biology classroom. The quantitative results suggested the intervention has created significant positive effects on students’ metacognitive regulation and self-efficacy but not conceptual understanding. Results from the multivariate analysis of variance and Pearson correlations suggest that the three dependent variables under study are correlated. To assist in the interpretation of the quantitative findings, individual interviews with students in the intervention group were analyzed thoroughly based on the concurrent triangulation approach. The interview results

The present research was designed to examine the psychometric properties of a Chinese version of the MLQ using a construct validation approach in 1,089 Hong Kong secondary school students. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine the structural validity of MLQ. Correlational analyses were done to assess how meaning in life dimensions relate to life satisfaction, self-reported duration of daily sleep, and connectedness to social agents. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the modified two-factor model of meaning in life with presence of meaning and search for meaning as key dimensions, was valid and reliable in the current sample. Evidence for configural, metric, and scalar invariance was found across boys and girls. Meaning in life dimensions was differentially associated with connectedness to various social agents, life satisfaction, and average daily sleep. MLQ is a psychometrically valid tool to measure meaning in life among Hong Kong Chinese students. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Lately, the topic of emotions in academic contexts has gained research attention, yet there has been relatively little exploration of how beliefs about collaboration contribute to students’ epistemic emotions. The objective of the present study was to examine this relationship in a Liberal Studies lesson. Forty-three Hong Kong secondary school students from two Liberal Studies classes participated in the study voluntarily. They completed instruments measuring their beliefs about collaboration and epistemic emotions (curiosity, confusion, anxiety) after they had completed a collaborative activity in the class. Path analysis showed a negative association between beliefs about collaboration and the two negative emotions (anxiety and confusion), yet a positive one with curiosity. These relationships were found to be consistent, as predicted by theory. Results of the study underscored the need to understand beliefs about collaboration and emotive variables and how these can be harnessed to promote positive learning outcomes. Copyright © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Junjun Chen and Ronnel B. King; individual chapters, the contributors.