This research study contributes to understanding teachers’ perceptions and views of using controversial issues and political neutrality in teaching, through an analysis of data gathered through questionnaire responses in a wider project and 41 semi-structured interviews. There are diversified views about the relationship between controversial issues and education. Some teachers feel that it is impossible to avoid controversial issues and that using them is educationally necessary. Three approaches were identified regarding their teaching of controversial issues: ‘open’, ‘critical’, and ‘committed’. The authors argue that teachers’ actions are influenced by factors which are discussed as ‘contextual’, ‘political’, and ‘pedagogical’. Teachers operate in specific places and times, have their own views about the nature of the good society, and prioritize their professional responsibilities. These findings contribute to our understandings of the teachers’ viewpoints and how those views are shaped. Such understandings will contribute to the development of reflective education policy and practice. Copyright © 2021 Teacher Development.

This chapter reports on two datasets. The first is a short questionnaire administered to International College Hong Kong Secondary Media Studies students in Year 10 and 11, regarding their public General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations, where students’ attitudes to Free Learning were probed. The second dataset comprised grade achievement comparisons between the 2019 Free Learning GCSE cohort and a previous cohort who had been prepared for the public examination via a standard teaching mode. While the sample was small, students responded positively to Free Learning as a teaching methodology and as preparation for a high-stakes examination. Regarding grade comparisons, grades achieved by the Free Learning cohort were very comparable with grades obtained by previous non- Free Learning cohorts. It would appear that even when it leads to public examinations, with the requirement to complete a set syllabus, Free Learning is a viable methodology. Copyright © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Ross Parker, David Coniam and Peter Falvey; individual chapters, the contributors.

This chapter presents findings from an exploratory case study, conducted in 2018 and 2019, that focused on the investigation of Free Learning at International College Hong Kong Secondary. Free Learning is one of the school-based curricular practices that can be considered an act of resistance against educational discourses centred around the learnification of education, which often implies an increase in learning freedom for students and a decrease in significance and value of the teacher role. The study explored the roles of teacher and student in Free Learning: to what extent Free Learning has an effect on both and how the student-teacher relationship is reconsidered. Data were collected and analysed through semi-structured interviews, observations and questionnaires, an analytical framework based on the school’s Approaches to Learning and the International Baccalaureate Standards and Practices. Additionally, Biesta’s (2009) work on the purposes of education and Foucault’s (1982) concept of “technologies of the self” were used as a theoretical lens. Findings show that the Free Learning approach allows for a student-teacher relationship that is reciprocal and that is neither focused on outcomes nor performance. These findings are discussed and framed, and suggestions are made for adoption and further research of Free Learning in different educational settings. Copyright © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Ross Parker, David Coniam and Peter Falvey; individual chapters, the contributors.

This chapter describes how Free Learning was adopted at the Education University of Hong Kong in a course which is part of the bachelor of education – Minor in Teaching and Learning in International Schools, a pre-service teacher education programme. The decision to adopt Free Learning at university level since January 2019 was the result of positive findings of a case study at International College Hong Kong in 2018 and the promises Free Learning seemed to hold for wider application (see Chapter 13 this volume). The rationale, description and evaluation of the adoption process of Free Learning in this chapter is given with the purpose of getting tertiary educators to consider their thinking about the why and how of innovative practices and to connect their courses to a complex and crisis-ridden world. The chapter emphasises the importance of developing students as responsible and thoughtful individuals and also how Free Learning – with this in mind – could be considered in different contexts. Copyright © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Ross Parker, David Coniam and Peter Falvey; individual chapters, the contributors.

The advantages and disadvantages of ability grouping for student achievement are strongly contested, with studies presenting different results. However, much of this research has focused on class-level or subject-level ability grouping. Relatively less research has focused on school-level ability grouping. More importantly, the role of teacher support has often been neglected in the ability grouping literature. The aim of this study was to shed light on the under-investigated area of school-level ability grouping, with teacher support examined as a crucial theoretical mechanism. We examined whether teacher support plays a mediating and/or moderating role in terms of how school-level ability grouping is related to student achievement in English and mathematics. The participants were 554 Hong Kong secondary students from the high- (Band 1), medium- (Band 2), and low- (Band 3) ability groups. The results indicate that students from high-ability groups enjoyed greater levels of teacher support, which partly explains their higher levels of achievement. This finding supports a mediation mechanism. Moreover, the results also provide support for a moderation mechanism. When students in low-ability groups received high levels of teacher support, they were able to achieve as much as students in the high-ability groups, in English but not for math. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Hong Kong has launched reforms to advocate child-centred pedagogies in kindergartens since 2000. This study examined the actual pedagogical interactions in eight kindergarten classrooms via videotaped observations. The teachers were surveyed before the observation and interviewed after receiving the observational report. Evidence revealed that the Hong Kong teachers used various scaffolding strategies to maintain a reciprocal interaction, and teacher-directed instruction dominated the pedagogical interactions. Most teachers had a positive attitude towards teacher–child interactions, yet traditional beliefs persisted. Teachers’ pedagogical interactions were associated with their age, years of teaching experience and educational level, but not with the age group they taught. Copyright © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Hong Kong preschool teachers have long been portrayed as ineffective reform implementers entrenched in the Confucian educational practices. This study, conducted in an award-winning drama partnership, solicits nineteen teachers’ voices on their first-hand experiences in using process drama for curriculum and pedagogical innovation. Based on Bakhtin’s voice theory and thematic analysis, the study identifies various kinds of teacher-reported benefits of this western educational borrowing, ranging from teaching capacity building, perceptual changes concerning childhood and teachers’ role, to personal wellbeing enhancement. Unlike previous studies, these findings represent teachers as effective implementers of process drama and active agents of education reform. Copyright © 2021 American Alliance for Theatre and Education.

Computational thinking (CT) practices have gained increasing importance in primary school education. However, there are few tools to measure primary school students' CT practices that are based on rigorous psychometric approaches. This study developed an operational definition for CT practices by exploring the key dimensions of their composition and, more importantly, developed and validated a generic test tool that can effectively assess students’ CT practices. Items to measure CT practices were developed using the evidence-centered design (ECD) approach. These items prompted students to exhibit behaviors that demonstrated their skills in the four dimensions of CT practice, namely testing and debugging, algorithmic thinking, reusing and remixing, and abstracting and modularizing. A test consisting of these items was administered to 13,956 Grade 4–6 primary school students from 56 public schools in Hong Kong. The data were analyzed based on the item response theory (IRT) approach, together with other psychometric tests. A bi-factor three-parameter logistic model was ultimately adopted for test validation, as it fitted the data better than the corresponding two-parameter and one-parameter logistic models. The results validated the four-dimensional structure of the CT practices test. The reliability, test item characteristics, and CT practice abilities of students are also discussed. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This study examined kindergarten teachers’ behavioural intentions to implement play-based learning and its relationship to two types of facilitating factors: organisational (i.e., instructional leadership and trust in colleagues) and individual (i.e., teacher self-efficacy). Structural equation modelling examining the direct and mediating effects was conducted on data collected from 542 Hong Kong kindergarten teachers. The results showed that principal instructional leadership was positively associated with teachers’ intentions to implement play-based learning directly and indirectly through trust in colleagues and teacher self-efficacy. Teachers with higher efficacious beliefs showed more active intentions to implement play-based learning. These findings highlight the importance of creating conducive organisational conditions and enhancing teacher self-efficacy for the implementation of play-based learning in kindergartens. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

In the era of information explosion, it is surprising to find that most of our students have not learned to self-regulate their own studies well. It might be explained by the common use of spoon-feeding teaching method since the beginning of public schooling in Asian countries. The individual differences in intelligence or diligence of students may not have been taken into careful consideration in mass class teaching. Students seem to be expected to overcome their personal limitations in order to benefit from the school curriculum. In recent studies, it is found that students’ failure to learn may be caused by insufficient ability to manage their own learning due to the lack of learning motivation, effective learning habits and skills. Self-regulated learning is widely perceived as a crucial element of successful, independent and life-long learning. Therefore, equipping students with self-regulated learning skills and empowering them to become self-regulated learners have become the major concerns of educators.The professional development programme entitled “Integrating Self-directed Learning in Classroom Pedagogy” has been offered to in-service teachers by the Education University of Hong Kong since 2017. It is a five-week block-release programme for practicing teachers. During those five weeks, the participants are encouraged to put theory into practice. They are divided into several learning circles according to their subject disciplines. Each learning circle is asked to develop effective ways of integrating self-regulated elements in their lesson design and implement the research lesson in their own schools.This paper reports an interdisciplinary lesson study of the professional development programme mentioned. Five teachers teaching the subjects of Business, Accounting and Financial Studies (BAFS), Liberal Studies, History and General Studies in primary and secondary schools were grouped together as a learning circle to plan a lesson on empowering their students