Following the increasing use of online learning among academic institutions worldwide, this study examined the relationships between enjoyment of study, study engagement, learning performance, and informal learning. Based on the intrinsic motivation theory, enjoyment of study is posited to motivate students to engage in their studies and affects their learning performance. In this study, study engagement was used as a mediator between enjoyment of study, learning performance, and informal learning. Data were collected from 137 undergraduate students in a Hong Kong university who participated in online learning for an academic semester. The results indicated that enjoyment of study and study engagement were positively related to learning performance and informal learning. Study engagement partially and fully mediated the relationships of enjoyment of study with learning performance and informal learning, respectively. Theoretical and practical implications for enjoyment of study in online learning are discussed. Copyright © 2023 University of the West Indies Open Campus.

Hong Kong students’ declining motivation levels in learning music have become an alarming issue and a challenge for music educators. At the same time, while expressing an interest in popular music, local students have limited opportunities to study the genre as part of their formal school curricula. It leaves the question of what kinds of teaching strategies and music materials should be constructed to provide students with educational and musical values in the school music curriculum. The present study explores the effects and responses of implementing popular music education in the local classroom, examines students’ motivational levels and, the psychology of music learning based on the self-determination theory.A teaching approach was created based on the concepts from informal learning practices with the addition of singing elements, namely the Sing by Ear project. The approach is tailored to the Hong Kong classroom music context, as instruments and spacious practice rooms are not required when resources are limited. The project aims to provide a comprehensive music learning approach in which confidence, and satisfaction, and musicianship through listening, creating, and performing could be earned collaboratively and simultaneously with the activity. The current research was administered under the explanatory sequential approach, which involves two phases of data collection: a quantitative phase followed by a qualitative phase. By employing the convenience sampling method, 323 participants (aged 11- 14) were invited to the three-month project. Students were involved in singing cover songs by ear instead of reading music notations in an a cappella setting. A mobile learning strategy was adopted due to the enforcement of social distancing measures following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.Data were collected by pre-test and post-test survey instruments and student interviews to determine (1) the extent of self-determination for having formal school music lessons

Transmission of traditional art forms in the modern world has been a major issue in the field of arts education. Different issues have been raised on how to preserve the traditional art forms for further development. Cantonese opera is a representative Chinese opera popular in south China including Hong Kong. However, the genre has been experienced fluctuation since 1950s with the difficulties of transmission through oral tradition to conservatory tradition. While the Hong Kong Government promotes the genre to reserve the cultural tradition, great masters have been fading out and younger generation encounters difficulties in inheriting the genre. This article reports parts of a large-scale study on the nature and characteristics of oral tradition, learning in community settings, conservatory tradition, and proposes a model of transmission of Cantonese opera in Hong Kong. The model may shed light on preserving, inheriting, and further developing traditional performing arts in the modern world. Copyright © 2018 The Author(s).

Learning takes place across different social contexts, and understanding how learners perceive and traverse different learning contexts enables educators to gain a more comprehensive view of their learning processes and to support their learning better. This study examined how undergraduate foreign language learners perceived their learning experiences inside and outside language classrooms, and how they bridged their learning experiences in the two contexts. Individual interviews with 11 undergraduate foreign language learners in Hong Kong showed that the learners perceived in-class and out-of-class language learning contexts as affording different functions, and they acted on the affordances of the two contexts to create complementary and synergetic learning experiences across the two. The study further revealed a list of resource features and learner factors that shaped how the learners perceived and acted on the resources. The findings suggest that educational structures should be set up to reinforce the integration of learning experiences across in-class and out-of-class contexts.
[Copyright of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2014.918982]