The purpose of this research was to explore gender differences and cultural differences in school motivation among students from eight culturally diverse groups from Western and non-Western societies. The selected groups come from Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, the Netherlands, and Qatar. More than 10,000 secondary school students reported their mastery, performance, social, and extrinsic motivation. Results showed (very) small to moderately large gender differences, which were largely in line with prior research in Western societies. Moreover, significant differences in school motivation across the eight cultural groups were found, however, only the Qatari sample strongly deviated from the other samples. In all cultural groups, females had slightly higher scores on mastery motivation and social motivation (except for Qatari students), and in several Western and non-Western samples, males had slightly higher scores on performance motivation. Gender differences in extrinsic motivation were less straightforward.
[Copyright of Research Papers in Education is the property of Routledge.]

Many Hong Kong Chinese parents believe that music training enhances the academic achievement of their children. The current study investigates the relationship between the extent and outcome of students' music training, their perceptions of the value of the subjects they study and their academic achievement. A total of 286 students in Primary 4, 5 and 6 from one school in Hong Kong reported the extent and outcome of their music training, including the number of instruments they studied, the number of years spent training, highest grade and highest level achieved. For value, students completed a subscale of the Achievement Task Value Questionnaire to measure their "liking and interest," perceived "importance" and "usefulness" of their school subjects. A nested structural equation model showed that, for both boys and girls, the extent and outcome of music training positively predicts academic achievement in Chinese, English and mathematics. Furthermore, the model shows that for both boys and girls, students' perceived value of their school subjects negatively predicts academic achievement in Chinese, and age has a direct and negative effect on mathematics achievement. For girls, age positively moderates the extent and outcome of music training on academic achievement whereas the moderator effect of age on students' perceived value of academic subjects is non-significant. For boys, in contrast, the moderator effect of age on extent and outcome of music training is non-significant, whereas its effect on students' perceived value of academic subjects is negative. In broad terms, the results show that parents are justified in believing that music training is positively related to academic achievement. However, the results differ for boys and girls in connection to the role of age in this relationship.
[Copyright of Research Studies in Music Education is the property of Sage Publications Ltd.]

Non-exercise physical activity (NEPA) is an important part of energy expenditure. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of exercise and NEPA among adolescents. In the HKSOS project 2006-2007, the proportions of Hong Kong Chinese adolescents (N = 32,005) achieving 60-minute exercise and 60-minute NEPA per day were analyzed. Exercise was defined as structured and planned physical activities, and NEPA was defined as unstructured and unplanned physical activities including walking for transportation and climbing stairs. The prevalence of exercise was higher in boys than girls (after school: 63.8% vs 39.6%; holidays: 78.7% vs 60.0%), but the prevalence of NEPA in boys was similar to that in girls (after school: 72.2% vs 68.0%; holidays: 80.3% vs 79.4%). In general, the prevalence of both exercise and NEPA decreased with age in boys and girls, but was more marked for exercise than NEPA. In conclusion, the prevalence of exercise was lower in adolescent girls than boys, and decreased more rapidly with age than NEPA. NEPA seems to be easier to accumulate than exercise among adolescents regardless of sex and age.
[Copyright of BioMed Central Ltd. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-8-3]

The Wallach-Kogan Creativity Tests were translated into Chinese and later fully computerized for research in Hong Kong. The normative data of two cohorts (1994 and 2002) of school children were employed to test the hypothesis that growth in creative thinking occurs in a society or culture during a period of education and curriculum reforms that emphasize creative thinking. Results of multivariate analysis of variance and subsequent univariate analysis of variance supported the hypothesis. Moreover, some interesting gender differences in creativity growth were observed, underlining the fact that boys and girls should be treated differentially to obtain a desirable creativity growth for them.
[Copyright of Creativity Research Journal is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Medical Teacher. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2013.843916]

Women business ownership contributes to entrepreneurship quality and diversity. However, the new venture creation rate of females lags far behind that of males. How to increase female entrepreneurship by entrepreneurship education is an important topic in the field. It has been reported that students' entrepreneurial intention is a key to their future entrepreneurial behaviors. This paper aims to empirically compare the entrepreneurial intentions between female and male engineering students with the exertion of entrepreneurship education. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used as the theoretical basis of this study. A total of 411 engineering students from three universities in Hong Kong, 303 males and 108 females, were involved in this study. The results show that TPB is appropriate to explain entrepreneurial intention of both female and male students. Further, male and female students are different in terms of entrepreneurial attitudes, social norms and entrepreneurial intentions even they experienced entrepreneurial education. This study suggests that teaching strategies to foster entrepreneurial intention of females should (1) emphasize female entrepreneurship, 2) provide female entrepreneurial models, and (3) create an entrepreneurial culture in campus.
[Copyright of Journal of Women's Entrepreneurship and Education is the property of Institut Ekonomskih Nauka.
Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://www.ien.bg.ac.rs/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=13&lang=en]