In this paper the colonial history of university education in Hong Kong, and recent changes in the governance of university education driven by global management discourses are discussed. With the systemic penetration of global economic rationalism, Hong Kong university education has gone through structural changes that include funding-linked evaluative policies and practices. Market imperatives and institutionally defined notions of research performance based mainly on English-language, overseas journal publications are exerting strong influence on the cultural practices and life styles of academics and stand to significantly change academic and intellectual culture in higher education in Hong Kong. The long-term consequences of these local interpretations and adaptations of global processes will be discussed in terms of their potential impact on academic freedom, the shaping of intellectual space, the intensification of competitive institutional research output, and the risk of privileging certain forms of knowledge production that puts aside local societal needs, indigenous knowledge and epistemologies. The views of experienced Hong Kong academics in the humanities and social sciences, as expressed in in-depth individual interviews, are also discussed. These are then interpreted with reference to Habermas' notion of different kinds of knowledge-constitutive interests (Habermas 1971) and Foucault's notion of the technology of discipline power to uncover the state's implicit transformation and shaping of the social and epistemological bases of academic and intellectual pursuits and the increasing trend of individualization of intellectual communities into isolated, individualistic, competitive knowledge workers (Foucault 1977).
[Copyright of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649370902823397]

Students' attitudes toward chemistry lessons in school are important dependent variables in curriculum evaluation. Although a variety of instruments have been developed by researchers to evaluate student attitudes, they are plagued with problems such as the lack of theoretical rationale and of empirical evidence to support the construct validity of data. This paper describes a study of students' attitudes toward chemistry lessons in Hong Kong secondary schools. One of the scales in the Test of Science-Related Attitudes developed by Fraser was modified to form an Attitude Toward Chemistry Lessons Scale (ATCLS). The construction of the ATCLS was based on a theoretical model with four dimensions: liking for chemistry theory lessons, liking for chemistry laboratory work, evaluative beliefs about school chemistry, and behavioural tendencies to learn chemistry. The arguments for inclusion of these four dimensions are presented. The final version of ATCLS was administered to 954 students. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that there was a good fit between the hypothesised model and the observed data.
[Copyright of International Journal of Science Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500690802189799]

One component of the curriculum reform in Hong Kong focuses on the use of homework in consolidating learning, deepening understanding and constructing knowledge. This study examines the profile of Hong Kong primary school students' homework involvement, and investigates the relationships between time involvement and academic attributes, namely interest in homework, interest in academic subjects, academic efficacy, and efficacy for self-regulated learning. The sample comprised 2,361 primary school students representing all six grade levels in Hong Kong. Data was collected using questionnaires and homework diaries. Results showed heavy homework involvement among primary school students in Hong Kong, especially at the senior primary level. Differential patterns across levels were observed for the relationship between homework involvement and academic attributes. Specifically, junior primary students' study-related interests and efficacies were found to decline with increasing time involvement, whereas inverted U-shape relationships were observed among senior primary students. There was concern for students with high time involvement as they received more homework and they worked slower. They were less likely to perceive the positive functions of homework, and showed poorer study-related interests and efficacy beliefs. The findings of this study provide crucial information for school personnel and educators in Hong Kong in developing homework strategies and policies that enhance teaching and learning.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188790902859004]

Media education has been around for quite some time in the West (Bazalgette et al. 1990), but it only started to gain acceptance in Asia (Cheung 2005), particularly in Hong Kong, in the last decade. Recently, it has been gaining more attention in Hong Kong thanks to the curriculum reform in which liberal studies will become one of the four core subjects to be taken by students in the New Senior Secondary Curriculum and media is one of the six themes to be studied in the subject of liberal studies. This article argues for the need for teaching media education in liberal studies and shows the many connections between the two subjects that facilitate this integration.
[Copyright of Curriculum Journal is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585170903424997]

This study examines Hong Kong students' motivational beliefs, strategy use and their relations with two relational factors in classrooms--student learning community and teacher support and involvement. A total of 2206 Grade Four to Grade Nine students responded to a questionnaire that comprised three instruments, including two scales measuring student learning community and teacher support and involvement in classroom, respectively, and the Chinese version of the Motivated Strategy for Learning Questionnaire. Our findings suggest that the two relational factors could play an important role in facilitating students' intrinsic value, self-efficacy, and strategy use, reflecting some culture-specific features of students' self-regulated learning in Hong Kong classrooms. The implications of these findings for understanding Hong Kong students' motivational beliefs and strategy use are discussed. Finally, suggestions for future research are put forward.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410903218844]

The aim of this study was to investigate whether, in the Hong Kong context, selfand peer-assessment promote students' self-reflection and enable students to understand their own strengths and weaknesses better. A three-stage assessment strategy was employed in three Science courses at The Chinese University of Hong Kong: (1) students developing assessment criteria, (2) self-assessment, and (3) peer-assessment. These assessment strategies are not common at the University. Education in Hong Kong is often portrayed as having less experience of, and being somewhat resistant to, educational innovation. So, in addition to studying the learning potential of these strategies, the study also focused on the practicality of implementing the new strategies. The results confirm that there are challenges in the present context but also indicate that these innovations to assessment are well perceived by students if they are appropriately framed and implemented.
[Copyright of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09695940903319729]

Having language delay--one of the common neurodevelopmental difficulties during childhood--does not only imply an impairment in communication in the 1st few years of life. Previous studies have suggested that language problems have long-term implications for social, emotional, and intellectual development. Researchers have found that early identification and intervention of speech and language delay yields better treatment effects. However, unlike most of the motor developmental assessment tools, language assessment tools are not readily transferred across cultures because of the different linguistic features and the developmental stages of such features in a particular language or dialect. The present study presents an empirical example of the initial development of a culturally sensitive screening protocol, using vocabulary size as the indicator to minimize the effect of linguistic differences.
[Copyright of Journal of Genetic Psychology is the property of Psychology Press . Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221320903217994 ]

Two hundred and ninety-six English majors at universities in Poland, Austria and Hong Kong were given a 50-item questionnaire designed to evaluate their knowledge of grammatical terminology. The main aim was to identify whether the three populations were subject to differing 'terminological cultures'. This was found to be substantially the case; for example, the term indefinite article was known by 95% of Polish students but only 29% of the Hong Kong ones, whereas imperative was known by 71% of the Austrians but only 5% of the Hong Kongers. Some differences were attributed to a lack of use of the related concept in teaching; others were explained by the use of a synonymous term (e.g. reported speech was preferred in Poland and Hong Kong but indirect speech in Austria). A significant correlation between terminological knowledge and language proficiency was found for the Hong Kong students. Qualitative findings included confusion between pairs of complementary terms and thosewith similar forms; unknown terms being treated as transparent with functional reference where possible; and the prototypical use ofwords as examples of grammatical categories (e.g. 'beautiful' for adjective). Implications for teachers, writers and researchers are discussed.
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This study aims to provide recommendations on school-based planning for the use of information technology (IT) to improve the quality of school education. Focus group discussions and case studies were conducted to collect the views of school practitioners on the need for IT in education and related areas of school-based planning. The results of this study indicated that schools in Hong Kong recognise the importance of Twenty-first Century Knowledge, the role of IT and the need for school-based IT in education plans. The schools put considerable effort into curriculum re-interpretation to accommodate the use of IT to improve learning and teaching, and have shown determination in their leadership to provide and manage IT infrastructure in response to the trend towards the integration of IT into school education. Four sets of school-based strategies are recommended to promote the role of IT in enhancing school education, namely the use of IT to foster the capability of enquiry learning, the promotion of self-regulated learning involving the use of digital resources, the use of digital student learning records to encourage assessment for learning, and the creation of a digital campus for effective learning and teaching.
[Copyright of Technology, Pedagogy and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14759390903255627]