This study examined possible bicultural effects on creative potential of children in four groups of Chinese and French children in Hong Kong and Paris. An international battery of widely used divergent measures (Wallach-Kogan Creativity Tests; WKCT) and newly constructed divergent-plus-integrative measures (Evaluation of Potential Creativity; EPoC) was established for assessment. Study 1 showed that most measures of WKCT and EPoC were reasonably high in reliability and they had expected correlations with the fluency scores of some subtests of Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Study 2 found some interestingly mixed bicultural effects favoring verbal divergent responses for French children and graphic integrative responses for Chinese children. Compared with Paris-French children, the bicultural Hong Kong-French children had significantly higher scores in figural fluency, figural flexibility, and figural uniqueness of WKCT (requiring only verbal divergent responses) but significantly lower scores in the graphic divergent-exploratory measure of EPoC. Compared with Hong Kong-Chinese children, the bicultural Paris-Chinese children had significantly higher scores in the graphic convergent-integrative measure of EPoC, but significantly lower scores in verbal fluency, verbal flexibility, figural fluency, figural flexibility, figural uniqueness, and figural unusualness of WKCT. Implications of the mixed bicultural effects in relation to the diverse creativity measures and children groups are discussed.
[Copyright of Creativity Research Journal is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2013.752281]

Many countries have invested heavily in facilities and teacher training for the infusion of information technology (IT) into various school subjects. The background besetting this innovation and how far learning has improved thereby are important concerns for the education sector. They are examined here with respect to Hong Kong, which is a mixed Chinese-western society now seeking to promote independent learning in all areas of the school curriculum. Geography is chosen for study because IT makes possible numerous changes and benefits to teaching and learning the subject. Among others, IT can help in testing hypotheses and solving problems of an environmental and spatial nature. Literature reviews, however, suggest that the frequency, extent and level of use are limited. This discrepancy between expectation and reality suggests that many necessary teacher and organisational conditions for implementation are not present, including the lack of appropriate hardware and software, technical support and teacher training and confidence. To address the problem, teachers need to take up constructivist approaches and the role of learning facilitators, while the curriculum authority should be more humanistic and considerate of reality in making decisions on policy.
[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/10.1080/10382046.2010.496966]

This dissertation consists of three studies which addressed the issue of describing creativity and enhancing creativity in Chinese writing among primary school students in Hong Kong. Although creativity is valued in the Curriculum Reform of Hong Kong, the degree to which creativity is incorporated into teaching by Chinese Language teachers was unknown. Study One addressed this issue by a survey using a tailor-designed 14-item questionnaire conducted among 449 Chinese Language teachers in primary schools to tap the respondents' perceptions of creativity, perceived ways of developing students' creativity, and their day-to-day practice of writing in classrooms. The results show that most of the teacher respondents conformed to the traditional method of teaching writing. Results suggested a detailed study to enhance teacher's skills in teaching creativity in Chinese which formed the foundation for Study Three. With Study One as the foundation, distinctions between Eastern and Western perspectives of creativity may be explored in future. Study Two was the development and validation of the Chinese Creative Writing Scale (CCWS) that was later applied as an outcome measure for creative writing in Chinese language in Study Three. The development of CCWS contributes to the measurement of creative writing in Chinese. With its good internal consistency, inter-rater reliability and construct validity, it can be used as an outcome measure for assessing the effectiveness of enhancing creativity in Chinese writing. With minor modifications, the scale can be applied in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Chinese societies elsewhere in the world. In Study Three, we first developed four learning studies using the phenomenographic approach and the Theory of Variation. To test the effect of the learning study approach, a quasi-experimental trial was then conducted in a primary school in Hong Kong. Four teachers joined the learning study for one academic year. Some 277 students were randomly allocated