This study examined the association between students' approaches to learning and stages of reflective thinking. The revised version of the Study Process Questionnaire was used to measure deep and surface approaches to learning and the Reflection Questionnaire was used to distinguish four stages of reflective and nonreflective thinking. Both questionnaires were completed by 402 undergraduates from all years of study from a health science faculty in a university in Hong Kong. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test possible associations. The results showed that only the habitual action scale correlated significantly to surface approach to learning. Understanding, reflection and critical reflection correlated with deep approach but had no correlation to surface approach. Understanding, reflection and critical reflection correspond to the use of a deep approach with increasing levels of meaningful personal assimilation. These findings provide evidence of close association between approaches to learning and stages of reflection upon practice. The results also provide evidence for the convergent validity of both questionnaires.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/014434022000022933]

Since the mid-1990s in Hong Kong there has been a slow but obvious shift from expecting students with disabilities to be educated in segregated special schools to providing more opportunities for them to be educated alongside their mainstream peers. Pre-service teacher training institutions have begun to offer modules of study in order to assist mainstream teachers in coping with greater diversity in their classes. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the adequacy of an inclusive education module on the attitude change of pre-service teachers in Hong Kong. A convenience sample of over 200 pre-service secondary teachers in a B.Ed. (Honours) Programme at one university participated in the study. Data were obtained through a three-part questionnaire to find out whether there were any substantial changes in their attitudes, concerns and confidence for inclusion before and after taking a module of study on inclusive education. Findings and implications are drawn in light of preparing teachers to cater for diversity in the schools in Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598660701268585]

There are many forms of information and feedback collected from students in Hong Kong. Most of these tend to concentrate on one particular aspect of the student experience. 'Evaluating the Student Experience Project (ESEP)' is a Hong Kong-wide initiative aiming to develop ways of evaluating students' experience, including the 'total student experience'. This paper discusses one of the projects funded through ESEP, a study at City University of Hong Kong exploring the expectations and experiences of first-year students. The project is designed to collect information from the student perspective to help management plan improvements. Feedback from students is analysed and then reported in a way that is accessible and that identifies areas for potential action. The internet has been used as a medium for questionnaire completion. This first-year project aims to involve students in the feedback process, including the use of focus group discussions prior to questionnaire design. This approach to collecting student feedback will be adopted across the university and potentially in other Hong Kong tertiary education institutions.
[Copyright of Quality in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13538320050001081]

Suicide as a cause of death among adolescents and migration as a component of population have been growing in importance. Very little research has been conducted on the connections between migration and suicidality among adolescents in Hong Kong, and so is the aim of this article. It uses census and registration data to study suicide mortality, and sample survey data collected for this purpose to investigate suicide attempt, suicide ideation, and self-injurious behavior. Relations between suicidality and socio-demographic/psychological factors replicated those found in the literature. Duration of residence was found important for the study of suicide among migrants. In both the bivariate and multivariate analyses, although the suicidality levels for short-duration (less than 10 years) adolescent migrants were very much lower than the local-born counterparts, those for the long-duration (10 years or more) migrants were very much higher. The findings support the Healthy Migrant Hypothesis and other related hypotheses in migrant mortality studies. They also reveal, in the light of the Integration Theory of Suicide, the problem of migrant integration into the host culture and society, an important social problem for the government to solve.
[Copyright of Death studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07481180600993144]