Practicing teachers often engage in continuous professional learning with certain career considerations. Based on achievement goal theory, this study explored the effects of career goals on teacher's learning using a sample of practicing teachers in Hong Kong. Two forms of career goals were assessed using a questionnaire. Professional learning goals orient teachers to learn for improving professional competence by acquiring professional knowledge and understanding, and extrinsic career goals focus teachers on learning for tangible benefits such as career promotion and higher professional qualification. Results derived from regression analyses confirmed that professional learning goals were the most significant goals in predicting adaptive use of learning strategies, regulatory strategies, and positive attitudes towards learning. Extrinsic career goals predicted the use of surface strategies. This study also found that self-efficacy mediated the effects of different goals on learning. Cluster analyses provided additional findings confirming the importance of professional learning goals in teachers' goal profiles.
[Copyright of Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540601003754806]

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among parental goals, parental beliefs and parenting styles. Questionnaires were completed during interviews with 189 Hong Kong-Chinese mothers of children aged six to eight years. Results indicated that these mothers embraced Chinese parental beliefs (guan) and Chinese parental goals of filial piety and harmonious social relationships. In contrast to other studies on Chinese parenting, this study examined Chinese mothers' adoption of psychological control in addition to authoritarian and authoritative parenting. Participants' main styles were found to be authoritative and psychologically controlling rather than authoritarian as reported in previous research. Parental goals were found to mediate the effect of parental beliefs on adoption of parenting styles. Mothers who embraced guan and filial piety reported either an authoritarian or a psychologically controlling parenting style, while those who embraced guan and harmonious social relationships adopted an authoritative parenting style.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430701536525]

Previous studies have suggested that Western constructs of academic motivation may operate in different ways in Asian contexts due to differences in the cultural environment. In the present study, the integrative effects of achievement goals, strategy orientations, and effort expenditure on achievement outcomes were examined among 1950 seventh-grade Chinese students in Hong Kong. Participants completed separate questionnaires for mathematics and English. Results for the two subjects were largely similar. There were significant positive relationships between mastery and performance goals, between cooperative and competitive orientations, as well as between understanding and memorizing strategies. Regression analyses further revealed that goals and strategies were highly predictive of effort expenditure, but only goals and effort significantly predicted achievement outcome, with strategies being barely significant. The need to further investigate how Chinese students reconcile the apparently antithetical orientations in learning as well as the effective strategies contributing to their learning is indicated.
[Copyright of International Journal of Psychology is the property of Psychology Press . Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207590701836323]