Research conducted in the late twentieth century pointed to a gulf in Hong Kong's universities between institutional medium-of-instruction policy, which stipulated the use of English, and lecturers' classroom practices, which often involved the use of Cantonese to present and explain the content of English-language textbooks and teaching materials. This article examines the findings of a study which sought to determine whether the policy-practice divide had widened or narrowed in the past two decades under the pressure of two potentially competing forces: globalisation and decolonisation. The evidence suggests that the policy-practice disjunction may have narrowed significantly in recent years, with most of the participants' teachers evidently making a determined effort to instruct and interact with their students in English in lectures and seminars.
[Copyright of World Englishes is the property of Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd..]

Research on transnational Higher Education governance has provided a thesis explaining how East Asian states have successfully selectively blended elements of globalisation in Higher Education with their pre-existing regulatory regimes. However, this paper argues that the thesis overlooks the significance of local politics in understanding the formulation of Higher Education policy, thus insufficiently acknowledging the indeterminacy that arises in the globalisation process. To address this argument, this paper examines the transnational Higher Education development in Singapore and Hong Kong and explains how political resistance and corresponding policy changes that emerged in these two societies help reconceptualise transnational Higher Education governance.
[Copyright of Higher Education Quarterly is the property of Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd..]

Responses from 309 randomly sampled Hong Kong primary school music teachers to the shortened version of the Chinese Teacher Stress Questionnaire were subjected to a descriptive percentage analysis, one-way ANOVA and independent t test. Obtained results identify five key stressors: "changing education policy of the government"; "being observed by colleague, student teachers, college tutors, inspectors or parents";"too much subject matter to teach"; "inclusive education"; and "additional administrative work". An explanation is offered identifying stressor responses being underpinned by either global or contextual issues, while others by a combination of both. Unlike other studies that found relations between stressors and respondents' individual characteristics, the results of this study uniquely display no significant statistical evidence to link music teachers' stressor response levels with age, teaching experience, education, specialization or teaching-related workload. The evidence here supports the view that stressors are neutral and reported stressor response levels reflect global or contextual factors which can be intensified by a combination of both.
[Copyright of International Journal of Music Education is the property of Sage Publications Ltd..]

As social work is an international profession, it is necessary to establish the validity of assessment of the field practicum of students for the purpose of professional accreditation. This study calibrates an indigenous assessment tool, the Social Work Practicum Assessment (SWPA), developed in Hong Kong with a competency-based evaluation (CBE) tool popularized in North America, using data collected from 171 social work final-year undergraduates. The results demonstrate convergence between the SWPA and CBE when rated by field instructors and were greater when the student-assessed CBE was higher. Alternatively, the student-assessed CBE displayed greater convergence with the instructor-rated CBE when the indigenous assessment was higher. The positive results imply the generalizability of the assessments across places.
[Copyright of International Social Work is the property of Sage Publications Ltd.]

The landscape of tertiary education has significantly changed in recent years with increasing pressure on universities to "globalize" and expand their reach internationally. In this context, there are a range of pedagogical and cultural issues to consider when designing curriculum to address the needs of students taking courses in different geographical locations. In addition to ensuring equivalence and quality, developing context-specific learning resources is a critical part of international delivery. Providing flexibility and autonomy to meet specific geocultural teaching and learning needs is vital. Programs and courses benefit from collaboration and connectivity between students and staff in all locations to ensure meaningful global learning environments. This paper focuses on a case study from an Australian University and examines how curriculum and delivery modes can be adapted to address the changing needs of transnational education a global context. The case study involves the renewal of a core undergraduate art history and theory subject that is offered in art and design programs across three different locations (Melbourne, Hong Kong and Vietnam). A series of learning materials and assessment tasks were designed to maximize a blended learning environment comprising face-to-face workshops, lectures, and online components. The result is a technology-enabled, common curriculum framework designed to allow for content to be adapted for local delivery.
[Copyright of International Journal of Education & the Arts is the property of International Journal of Education & the Arts]

The quality of a teacher plays one of the most important roles in the achievement of an education system. Teacher training is a multi-dimensional process which comprises the selection of teacher candidates, pre-service training, appointment, in-service training and teaching practices. Therefore, this study focuses on teacher training processes in Singapore, Shanghai-China, Hong Kong-China and Turkey and aims to discover the reasons for success in Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) by relating it with teacher training processes. Singapore, Shanghai-China, Hong Kong-China were chosen to study because their educational systems were ranked among the high-performing educational systems in 2016. This study was a qualitative research and document analysis method was used to collect data about the relevant countries' teacher training processes. The result of the study suggested some practical considerations for teacher training programs in low-performing education systems about the selection of teacher candidates, pre-service training, appointment, in-service training and teaching practices.
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As one of the essential skills for success in work and studies, English communication is often made a key component in the GE curriculum of tertiary study programmes. In addition to the provision of required English proficiency courses, many tertiary institutions have established English centres of some description to promote English learning on campus. Yet from students' perspective, what kinds of programmes and activities should be offered, and how they feel about these initiatives is not very widely discussed in the existing literature. This paper aims to address these questions with practical experiences gained from a project to establish an English language enhancement centre by one self-financing tertiary institution in Hong Kong. Funded by the Quality Enhancement Support Scheme (QESS), the centre, titled the Centre for Academic and Professional Language Enhancement (CAPLE), was set up in March 2016. Cognizant of the benefits of life-wide learning, independent learning and collaborative peer learning, CAPLE offers a series of workshops and various kinds of English and culture learning activities that adopt these pedagogical approaches. Centre usage figures and user feedback were continuously collected for evaluative purposes. Data collected through student diaries, online surveys, usage records of the online programmes and other resources and a focus group interview showed varying levels of popularity of different types of workshops/activities, suggesting there is a need for programme designers to have a more realistic view about students' actual English learning needs and learning motivation. Recommendations are made accordingly for more economical use of resources.
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This small-scale exploratory study identified strategies used by three intellectually very able university students with specific learning difficulties for maintaining motivation on their path to achievement. All three participants were located in Hong Kong. The research questions were: (a) What coping strategies are used by intellectually very able university students with specific learning difficulties? (b) What are the critical influences driving and supporting their motivation to achieve? A narrative inquiry method was used to obtain and analyze data. Two gifted university graduates and one undergraduate, all with specific learning difficulties, were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire and open discussion. Data indicated that they developed strategies to cope largely in response to adverse learning environments. The support of significant persons, such as parents and teachers, were also seen to be essential for sustaining their motivation to achieve. Implications for supporting university students with specific learning difficulties are briefly discussed.
[Copyright of Gifted Education International is the property of SAGE Publications]

Co-curricular activities in general are believed to be useful for students' development, such as improvement in academic performance, higher retention rate, enhancement of social and competency skills, and assistance of youth development and employment. With the expansion of the education sector and the implementation of a new 3-3-4 education system in Hong Kong, the background and training of students is different from the past, so it is worthwhile investigating students' interest, understanding and perceptions about co-curricular activities nowadays in an Asian context. Comparison between the perceptions of sub-degree and degree students is discussed. Similarities and differences are found in both groups of students. Based on the findings, suggestions are made to education institutions in planning their resources on co-curricular activities.
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Hong Kong university students have shown various psychological health problems. Spiritual intelligence (SI) has been found to have a positive correlation with mental well-being. However, a reliable measure to assess SI in Hong Kong students is lacking. The present study, which comprised three phases, aimed to develop a scale of SI that could meet the characteristics of Hong Kong university students. Phase 1 aimed to explore the meaning of SI in Hong Kong and to develop the preliminary scale of SI. Twenty-eight participants, with or without religion, were interviewed about their understanding of SI. Adopting comparative and inductive techniques, eight categories of SI were revealed: Social Harmony and Influence, Morality, Personal Life Meaning, Emotional Competence, Connection to Higher Power, Existential Thinking, Reflection on Truth and Self, and Practice. A 62-item Chinese Spiritual Intelligence Scale (CSIS) was developed based on these categories. Phase 2 aimed to finalize the items of the CSIS and determine its factor structure. Two hundred and nineteen university students completed the CSIS. Several exploratory factor analyses led to a 29-item six-factor model for CSIS and the model was evaluated in Phase 3. Another sample of 283 Hong Kong university students completed the revised version of CSIS, together with other questionnaires on life meaning, metapersonal self-construal, life satisfaction, mental health, mood states, and emotional intelligence. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to determine whether the 29-item six-factor model fit the current sample. As high correlations were shown among some of the six factors, a four-factor model was proposed. The EFA result supported a 23-item four-factor model and the CFA further validated the model. The full scale of CSIS and its four subscales had good internal reliability. The CSIS was also positively correlated with measures of life meaning, metapersonal self-construal, life satisfaction, mental health, positive