This study sought to assess the viability of the use of a self-report checklist identifying different aspects of giftedness in a sample of 192 Chinese secondary students from a multiple intelligences perspective. For comparison, IQ, creativity, and leadership characteristics of these students were also assessed using conventional standardized measures. Data on academic achievement in Chinese language, English language, and mathematics were obtained from school records. While students perceived the seven intelligences as relatively distinct abilities, these self-estimates of the seven intelligences did not generally predict the conventional measures, suggesting that the seven intelligences and the conventional measures provided independent and possibly complementary information on aspects of giftedness. The implications of the development of a profile of strengths and weaknesses of students from a multiple intelligences perspective for subsequent identification and programming are discussed.
[Copyright of High Ability Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598130120084348 ]

Secondary school students have been experiencing stress related to examination and academic performance in Hong Kong: the Special Administrative Region of the Chinese Mainland. The article reports a case study which applied the student empowerment model originated from western societies and the ‘Qing’ concept of Chinese philosophy to formulate a student Quality Student Leadership (QSL) programme in a secondary school. The programme aimed to reduce the stress of the students and at the same time improve their initiative, leadership, and also the relationship between the students and with the parents and teachers. The results showed that the programme was effective in achieving its objectives.
[Copyright of Pastoral Care in Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0122.00215 ]

The present study looks at how family processes and the classroom norms influence students' employment of learning strategy in junior secondary schools in Hong Kong. It employed an ecological perspective to look at how family factors and classroom factors uniquely and combined to influence students. Nineteen secondary schools with 948 Secondary 2 students and their family members participated in the cross-sectional survey for the research. Findings of the study suggest that peer victimization norm in the classroom plays a moderating role in the association between socioeconomic background and students' use of achievement strategy in learning Chinese. The result of the research is suggested to have important implications for home-school relations in Hong Kong, as well as the restructuring of the school process to create a more supportive and nurturing environment for learning and teaching.
[Copyright of Journal of School Violence is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J202v07n01_04]

Students from a school in Hong Kong (n=199) responded to 22 items asking about their school motivation and aspirations in a survey. Structural equation models found four school motivation factors consistent with the task, effort, competition, and praise scales of the Inventory of School Motivation, one education aspiration factor, one career aspiration factor, and significant relations of the motivation factors with the aspiration factors. Task and effort orientations were found to be stronger than the other orientations and to have relatively stronger associations with education aspirations, whereas task and praise had stronger associations with career aspirations. In examining potential change in students' goal orientations and aspirations through high school years, analysis of variance found that 7th-graders had significantly higher scores in task and effort orientations and career aspirations than 9th-graders, and higher scores in praise orientation than 11th-graders. The apparent drop in motivation scores from Grade 7, especially in task and effort orientations, both pertaining to a mastery orientation dimension that has been assumed to be a major driving force for excellence, calls for urgent attention to student motivation in junior high school classes.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410500046804 ]