Post-secondary admission and community college (CC) transfer are two common routes of entry to baccalaureate study. Previous studies comparing the academic performances of native and transfer students have generated inconsistent findings and, furthermore, they were largely conducted in Western educational contexts. This study compared the workloads, grade point averages (GPA) and attrition rates of native and transfer students in an Asian educational context. Various measures related to GPA, credit load and attrition rate were collected from the institutional dataset of a Hong Kong university in 2019; this dataset contained records of 14,141 native students and 7308 transfer students enrolled between 2012 and 2018. Results show that the transfer students experienced transfer shock and had heavier study loads but lighter non-academic loads than the native students. Despite the transfer shock, they attained a higher award GPA and had a lower attrition rate than their native counterparts. Discussion and implications are presented, in relation to transfer shock and transfer student success. In particular, this article argues that CC education does not necessarily produce academically inferior degree-seeking students and that CC transfer is a viable pathway to baccalaureate study.
[Copyright of Higher Education Research & Development is the property of Routledge.]

Children from families of low socioeconomic status (SES) tend to experience lower academic achievement than children from middle-SES families. This discrepancy can be attributed to a range of parental factors. The present study tested: (1) the extent to which academic achievement in three core subjects differs between children from low- and middle-SES backgrounds; (2) the differences in parental expectation, parental involvement, and child engagement across the two groups; and (3) the mediating role of parental expectation, parental involvement, and child engagement in explaining how SES influences children's academic achievement. The sample consisted of 184 primary students with low SES and 165 primary students with middle SES from mainstream primary schools in Hong Kong. Results revealed significant differences in parental expectation, parental involvement, child engagement, as well as academic achievement in Chinese and English subjects between the low-SES and middle-SES groups. Our findings also suggest that parental expectation, parental involvement, and child engagement may be important mediators in the relationship between SES and academic achievement. Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The role of emotions in student engagement has been examined in many studies. However, little is known about how emotional intelligence (EI) is related to engagement and other key learning outcomes in higher education. To fill this gap, this study examined how EI is associated with student engagement and how EI and engagement jointly predict key learning outcomes in higher education, including the students’ GPA, generic outcomes, and satisfaction with the university experience. The study adopted a prospective longitudinal design involving 560 first-year students from 10 faculties of a university in Hong Kong. The data were collected at two-time points, namely before the start and after the end of the students’ first year in the university. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the measurement and hypothesized models. Results indicated that EI positively predicted all dimensions of student engagement and promoted key learning outcomes (including GPA, generic learning outcomes, and students’ satisfaction with the university) via the different dimensions of student engagement. The model also explained 16%, 44%, and 38% of the students’ GPA, generic learning outcomes, and satisfaction with their university experience, respectively. This study provides empirical evidence on the positive effect of EI on the students’ optimal functioning in the higher education context. Implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 2020 Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Lisboa and Springer Nature B.V.

Under-examination of the notion of competition between schools has created a considerable asymmetry between the reality and the literature of schooling. Therefore, this study investigates the validity of school competition and verifies the propositions regarding the effects of school marketing practices in literature, particularly DSS and aided schools in Hong Kong. It tests the relationships between student intake and school academic performance and school marketing practices. It also compares the pattern of the relationships between the Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) and aided secondary schools. Secondary data from 441 secondary schools were retrieved from a popular secondary school admission magazine in Hong Kong and from the schools’ websites. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the school’s academic performance was positively related to discretionary student intake. In addition, marketing school academic performance, but not marketing school features, was positively related to student intake. Lastly, it was found that marketing school academic performance intensified the relationship between the school’s academic performance and student intake in aided schools but not in DSS schools. The results were interpreted as demonstrating that school competition in Hong Kong is a battle of lifting academic performance. Copyright © 2019 Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

The Hong Kong education system has undergone a dramatic change in its secondary and tertiary level of education. A single public examination for senior secondary education namely Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) was adopted to replace two previously used examinations in 2012. As a result, all higher education institutes in Hong Kong admitted different groups of secondary graduates into the same cohort in 2012 for sub-degree programmes. This study investigated the academic performance of students from different secondary schooling systems in an environmental studies course. Questionnaire survey data and the assessment results of a compulsory course of the students were used for this study. Results indicated significant differences in academic performance in the environmental studies course between three different groups of students. The students that completed a three-year senior secondary education outperformed their counterparts who completed the pre-associate degree and four-year senior secondary education in the environmental course assessment results. Students' environmental attitudes were positively correlated with academic performance on the environmental course, suggesting that students with better environmental attitudes performed better in the environmental studies course.
[Copyright of International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10382046.2016.1155323]

A core goal of inclusive education worldwide is to maximize the learning potential of students with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream educational settings. However, little research attention has been paid to SEN children's social and emotional gains from inclusive education compared to their academic performance. This study included social, emotional, and academic variables in a single research design, not only to test their relationships but also to explore the predictive roles of social and emotional factors in academic performance for SEN students. Participants were 515 SEN students in grades 1–6 in mainstream primary schools in Hong Kong. The results showed that the social and emotional competences of children with SEN were significant predictors of their academic performance (p < .001), with emotional competence having the larger impact. Although SEN students' relationships with peers and teachers were not found to be direct significant predictors of academic performance as reported in previous studies; they positively and significantly predicted emotional and social competences of SEN students (p < .001). Implications for establishing a caring campus, as well as developing educational interventions which will increase SEN students' positive emotional experiences and foster and maintain their adaptive social and emotional competences are discussed.
[Copyright © Springer].

The research team developed a mindfulness course for less academically able adolescents that aims to help them improve their emotional regulation and affective control with the ultimate aim of improving their academic performances. For the duration of the course in three secondary schools in Hong Kong high dropout rate and low attendance rate among the participants were recorded. Interviews with the students revealed that most students were not interested in the mindfulness course because of the quiet and static nature of mindfulness activities. Based on these findings, possible ways of improving the course are proposed.
[Copyright of Social Work in Mental Health is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15332985.2014.932885]

The present study examines the dynamic relationship between academic performance of high school students and their respective learning and study strategies. Two hundred thirty-six high school students were recruited to participate in this study by completing a Chinese version of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory - LASSI, to probe into the relationship. Results found that (1) there were clear differences to the learning and study strategies used by high school students with high academic performance, and those with low academic performance; (2) all the three components (Will; Self-regulation and Skill) were equally important to differentiate high academic achieving high school students from low academic achieving high school students within the strategic model of learning; and (3) a numbers of learning and study strategies were effectively predicting the academic performance of the high school students. All of these result patterns confirm that learning and study strategies used by high academic achievers and low academic achievers as well as the components used to predict students' academic performance in the high school setting are quite different from the patterns revealed in the tertiary education sector.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2013.794493]

Based on self-reported cognitive, metacognitive, and behavioural strategy measures obtained from 828 final-year students from a university in Hong Kong, latent profile analysis (LPA) identified four distinct types of students with differential self-regulated learning strategy orientations: competent self-regulated learners, cognitive-oriented self-regulated learners, behavioural-oriented self-regulated learners, and minimal self-regulated learners. Students in the competent SRL profile demonstrated the highest levels of academic self-concept, motivation, attitude, and the lowest level of test anxiety and best academic performance. Multinomial logistic regression analysis also indicated that learning experience factors (teaching quality, clear goals and standards, appropriate assessment and workload) were significant predictors of SRL profile membership. The profiling of student self-regulated learning strategies resulted in enhanced understanding of the complex range of processes students employ and offered new insights into this emerging area of student learning.
[Copyright of Studies in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.880832]