Preservice teachers' focus of concern and confidence to teach are often considered to be important elements of teachers' growth and development. Fuller's (1969) model of three concerns, viz. "self", "task" and "impact" have been widely referred to by researchers in the study of teacher professional development and covered in teacher education programmes. The author of this paper attempted to conduct a survey study of a course of preservice secondary teachers in the Hong Kong Institute of Education to examine their focus of concerns and confidence to teach as part of the investigated areas of teacher development. The purpose was to see whether there was any difference from that proposed by Fuller due to different cultural context. The obtained results supported Fuller's model of concerns in that the "self" concerns were prominent and dominating within the sample under study. In this respect, there is little difference between the western and Hong Kong sample of preservice teachers' focus of concern. Of the "self" concerns, class discipline, acceptance by students and teachers' mastery of subject knowledge and teaching skill were classified the most important ones by the Hong Kong preservice teachers. These concerns were also closely related to the important factors which they considered for successful teaching. The high level of confidence and optimism exhibited before teaching practice also supported Weinstein's (1989, 1990) findigns that preservice teachers, whether elementary or high school teachers were unrealistically optimistic about teaching. The similarity in findings between the Hong Kong and the western samples studied by Fuller and Weinstein suggest the plausibility of utilizing western principles and concepts in local context. Above this, the author would like to draw the attention of teacher educators and program planners to the underlying reasons given by preservice teachers about their changes in confidence, optimism and concerns before and after teaching

Over the past several decades of research, consistent differences in academic achievement among students of various racial groups and of different nations have been well-documented. More recent models in accounting for cross-national differences in academic achievement centered on the importance of cultural values (Chen & Uttal, 1988; Stevenson & Lee, 1990). Chen, Stevenson, Hayward, and Burgess (1995) advocated that cultural values and beliefs would be important antecedents affecting students' motivation and learning behaviour, subsequently lead to the academic achievement.
Hau and Salili (1996) asserted that: "Cultural values of collectivism and emphasis on hard work, effort and perseverance have important implications on Chinese achievement orientations. There is some converging empirical evidence from a number of researches suggesting that Chinese are learning goal oriented and attribute their performance more to their effort than to their ability" (p. 129). Based on these speculations, it appears that cultural values such as collectivism and individualism may have influence on the motivational orientations adopted by the students. Recent researches on achievement goals had identified two goals: learning goal and performance goal. There are quite a number of researches that linked achievement goals and the learning strategies/cognitive engagement endorsed/spent by the students. Nolen's (1988) study implicated that task orientation (learning goal oriented) was positively correlated with use of strategies requiring deep processing of information. Greene and Miller's (1996) study had its significance in identifying that performance goals are positively correlated with shallow cognitive engagement. Kong and Hau's (1995) study implicated learning goal orientation is more adaptive in Chinese students. Therefore, with respect to the above findings, converging and significant conclusion can be drawn that achievement goal orientations have direct influences on the learning