This study examines Hong Kong students' motivational beliefs, strategy use and their relations with two relational factors in classrooms--student learning community and teacher support and involvement. A total of 2206 Grade Four to Grade Nine students responded to a questionnaire that comprised three instruments, including two scales measuring student learning community and teacher support and involvement in classroom, respectively, and the Chinese version of the Motivated Strategy for Learning Questionnaire. Our findings suggest that the two relational factors could play an important role in facilitating students' intrinsic value, self-efficacy, and strategy use, reflecting some culture-specific features of students' self-regulated learning in Hong Kong classrooms. The implications of these findings for understanding Hong Kong students' motivational beliefs and strategy use are discussed. Finally, suggestions for future research are put forward.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410903218844]

The aim of this study was to investigate whether, in the Hong Kong context, selfand peer-assessment promote students' self-reflection and enable students to understand their own strengths and weaknesses better. A three-stage assessment strategy was employed in three Science courses at The Chinese University of Hong Kong: (1) students developing assessment criteria, (2) self-assessment, and (3) peer-assessment. These assessment strategies are not common at the University. Education in Hong Kong is often portrayed as having less experience of, and being somewhat resistant to, educational innovation. So, in addition to studying the learning potential of these strategies, the study also focused on the practicality of implementing the new strategies. The results confirm that there are challenges in the present context but also indicate that these innovations to assessment are well perceived by students if they are appropriately framed and implemented.
[Copyright of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09695940903319729]

This paper explores whether any of the traditional aspects of Chinese culture discussed in the marketing and cross-cultural literature still apply to today's generation of Chinese students in the seemingly westernized location of Hong Kong. It finds that most of the traditional cultural beliefs are still endorsed although Hong Kong students also felt that they were quite independent, individual and creative-within the framework of respecting traditional values. The paper then discusses (on the basis of presenting the same set of students with the findings of this part of the research) how foreign universities might adapt their courses and programs to meet the cultural needs of Hong Kong students. It was found that universities need to adopt a delicate balance between respecting traditional Chinese values and concepts, and encompassing more westernized beliefs and attitudes which enable the students to learn in an environment which enables them to express their creativity and individualism, within a fundamentally quite conservative cultural environment. The value of the research is that it will help foreign universities position their programs and courses for this quite complex and subtle market.
[Copyright of Journal of Marketing for Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J050v13n01_09]

Having language delay--one of the common neurodevelopmental difficulties during childhood--does not only imply an impairment in communication in the 1st few years of life. Previous studies have suggested that language problems have long-term implications for social, emotional, and intellectual development. Researchers have found that early identification and intervention of speech and language delay yields better treatment effects. However, unlike most of the motor developmental assessment tools, language assessment tools are not readily transferred across cultures because of the different linguistic features and the developmental stages of such features in a particular language or dialect. The present study presents an empirical example of the initial development of a culturally sensitive screening protocol, using vocabulary size as the indicator to minimize the effect of linguistic differences.
[Copyright of Journal of Genetic Psychology is the property of Psychology Press . Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221320903217994 ]

The drawing abilities of 297 Hong Kong Chinese students were assessed by two expert judges based on two drawings done by each student, using two drawing tasks originally used in Clark's Drawing Abilities Test. These expert ratings were examined in relation to students' self-ratings on the same drawings, self-reports on their involvement in drawing activities, and performance on spatial tests on mental rotation and impossible figures. The results of multiple linear regression analysis suggested that a greater involvement in drawing activities and a higher score on impossible figures task, in addition to being female and a secondary school student, were associated with higher ratings from expert judges. Implications of the findings for assessment of visual arts talent are discussed.
[Copyright of Roeper Review is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02783190902994084]

This paper reports the findings of a study that investigates the attitudes of 555 boys and 493 girls towards the three official spoken languages used in postcolonial Hong Kong (i.e. Cantonese, English and Putonghua). The respondents started their secondary school education one year after the city was returned to the sovereignty of China from Britain. They were in their fourth year of studies at the time of this research. A questionnaire survey was conducted to find out how differently the two gender groups perceived the three target languages when they were repositioning themselves in the new sociopolitical context of Hong Kong. Informed by the quantitative results, group interviews were conducted to explore the reasons underlying the main attitudinal differences between the two genders. Similar to the research conducted in other parts of the world, female respondents were found to be consistently more positive than their male counterparts in their attitudes towards the non-native languages while male students were more positively inclined to the vernacular. Given the more accommodating attitudes of females to other languages, it is more likely that they will be the group who pushes Hong Kong forward towards a higher degree of multilingualism.
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Two hundred and ninety-six English majors at universities in Poland, Austria and Hong Kong were given a 50-item questionnaire designed to evaluate their knowledge of grammatical terminology. The main aim was to identify whether the three populations were subject to differing 'terminological cultures'. This was found to be substantially the case; for example, the term indefinite article was known by 95% of Polish students but only 29% of the Hong Kong ones, whereas imperative was known by 71% of the Austrians but only 5% of the Hong Kongers. Some differences were attributed to a lack of use of the related concept in teaching; others were explained by the use of a synonymous term (e.g. reported speech was preferred in Poland and Hong Kong but indirect speech in Austria). A significant correlation between terminological knowledge and language proficiency was found for the Hong Kong students. Qualitative findings included confusion between pairs of complementary terms and thosewith similar forms; unknown terms being treated as transparent with functional reference where possible; and the prototypical use ofwords as examples of grammatical categories (e.g. 'beautiful' for adjective). Implications for teachers, writers and researchers are discussed.
[Copyright of Language Awareness is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658410802513751]

This study aims to provide recommendations on school-based planning for the use of information technology (IT) to improve the quality of school education. Focus group discussions and case studies were conducted to collect the views of school practitioners on the need for IT in education and related areas of school-based planning. The results of this study indicated that schools in Hong Kong recognise the importance of Twenty-first Century Knowledge, the role of IT and the need for school-based IT in education plans. The schools put considerable effort into curriculum re-interpretation to accommodate the use of IT to improve learning and teaching, and have shown determination in their leadership to provide and manage IT infrastructure in response to the trend towards the integration of IT into school education. Four sets of school-based strategies are recommended to promote the role of IT in enhancing school education, namely the use of IT to foster the capability of enquiry learning, the promotion of self-regulated learning involving the use of digital resources, the use of digital student learning records to encourage assessment for learning, and the creation of a digital campus for effective learning and teaching.
[Copyright of Technology, Pedagogy and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14759390903255627]