This study examined reading motivation in Hong Kong secondary school students, taking account of school-related factors of medium of instruction, teacher support and peer support and demographic factors of gender, grade and socio-economic status. Specifically, the research questions were: (1) How are the school factors of medium of instruction, teacher support and peer support related to reading motivation in Chinese (first language; L1) and reading motivation in English (second language; L2)? (2) How are the demographic factors of socio-economic status, gender and grade related to reading motivation in Chinese and English? and (3) Are there differential patterns of prediction of school factors and demographic factors for Chinese and English reading motivation? The SRQ-Reading Motivation Questionnaire, designed to measure reading motivation as conceptualized by Self-Determination Theory (SDT), was adopted. Nine hundred and forty-one secondary school students participated in this study, from the grade levels of secondary one, four and six in seven secondary schools in Hong Kong. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that their reading motivation was comprised of two factors, Autonomous Chinese Reading Motivation (ACRM), Autonomous English Reading Motivation (AERM), Controlled Chinese Reading Motivation (CCRM) and Controlled English Reading Motivation (CERM). To address the three research questions, structural equation modeling was used to investigate the relationships among the variables examined in the present study. The findings showed that Teacher Support significantly predicted all reading motivation outcomes. A higher level of teacher support was associated with higher levels of autonomous and controlled reading motivation in the two languages. Peer Support was also a significant predictor of all reading motivation outcomes. Surprisingly, peer support had a negative relationship with controlled reading motivation in Chinese and in English but a positive relationship

Using the invariance test, this study compared the research experiences of students from two sibling cultural groups in a Hong Kong context. Data were collected from 304 Mainland Chinese and 225 local Hong Kong research students. Their research experiences were measured using the Student Research Experience Questionnaire (SREQ) (Supervision, Infrastructure, Intellectual and Social Climate, Generic Skill, and Overall Satisfaction) and two scales developed from previous studies on research students in Hong Kong (Peer Support and Communication with Supervisor). The data supported the construct validity and consistency of all the scales and the measurement equivalence of all measurements except Intellectual and Social Climate. The data showed that Mainland Chinese students had significantly higher satisfaction with Infrastructure, and marginally higher satisfaction with Supervision, Communication with Supervisors, and Peer Support than local Hong Kong students. The invariance tests on path coefficients indicated that there was a nonsignificant difference in the path models of the two groups.
[Copyright of Studies in Higher Education is the property of Routledge.]

In 1997, the two-year pioneer project on inclusive education for students with disabilities was implemented. The peer ambassador programs aiming at creating more opportunities for students with and without disabilities to interact with each other were also launched at that time. The aim of this study was to examine the experience of the peer ambassadors from an insider's perspective. A convenient sample of 23 peer ambassadors from 6 secondary and 17 primary schools participated in semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using a constant comparative method and content analysis. The findings suggested that the roles of peer ambassadors included friend, academic tutor and Big-Brother-Big-Sister. All participants had very positive feelings in the process of helping others. Three quarters of the participants reported that they had development in the areas of personal qualities and interpersonal skills. All of them received support from the resource teachers, but their participation was affected by the attitude of peers and family. They also indicated that they needed support in handing the challenging behavior of classmates with disabilities. A mutual helping relationship was found between students with and without disabilities in the inclusive schools and the peer ambassadors also had personal development through the helping process. Strategies for program improvement are suggested to encourage students with and without disabilities to learn together.
[Copyright of Hong Kong Special Education Forum is the property of Special Education Society of Hong Kong Ltd.. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
https://sites.google.com/a/seshk.org.hk/seshk-org-hk/c_publication]

During the past decade, the issue of reading difficulties has received increasing attention in Hong Kong. A recent Education Bureau mandate calls for the development of effective instructional methods based on the 3-tier model to address the diverse learning needs of our students. Following a thorough review of the relevant research literature, we attempted to utilise a peer support learning system both as a Tier 1 preventive reading programme for beginning readers and as a Tier 2 supplementary remediation programme for struggling adolescent learners. Our investigative efforts indicate that the proposed peer support reading scheme shows promise as a preventive procedure for reducing reading failure in beginning readers. However, turning this scheme into a feasible and effective intervention for older students remains a challenge to be resolved by further consolidation and investigations.
近年閱讀困難的問題愈來愈受到關注。教育局倡議應用三層支援模式去處理個別差異。我們認為朋輩支援模式可作為第一層支援小學生優質閱讀的方法，亦可成為第二層支援中學生的小組補救教學策略。初步的研究結果顯示初小班級計劃的成效不錯，但初中的小組輔導計劃所面對的難度相對較高，尚需更多的研發方能成為有效可行的策略。
[Copyright of Journal of Youth Studies is the property of The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups at http://yrc.hkfyg.org.hk/]

The author tested a model hypothesizing that students' self-perceived academic support (from parents, teachers, and peers) is related to their achievement directly and indirectly through their own perceived academic engagement. The participants were 270 adolescents (M age = 15.41 years, range = 14–20 years) from 3 grade levels (Forms 3–5, equivalent to Grades 9–11 in the United States) in a Hong Kong secondary school. The school principal and teachers helped to collect data based on these adolescents' responses to a self-report questionnaire, consisting of a demographic profile and 4 scales assessing their self-perceptions of the extent of parental, teacher, and peer support, and their own academic engagement. Academic achievement was measured by self-reported grades in math, English, and Chinese. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that adolescents' perceived parental, teacher, and peer support were all indirectly related to their academic achievement mediated by their own perceived academic engagement. The strength of the relationships, however, varied by support system, with perceived teacher support to achievement being the strongest, followed closely by perceived parental support, and then perceived peer support. In addition, both perceived parental support and perceived teacher support were directly related to academic achievement. However, perceived teacher support made the most total (direct and indirect) contribution to student achievement. Perceived peer support had the smallest, nonetheless significant, indirect relationship to academic achievement. However, the negative, direct influence of perceived peer support canceled out its positive, indirect influence on academic achievement.
[Copyright of Genetic Social and General Psychology Monographs is the property of Routledge . Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/MONO.131.2.77-127 ]