This study employed the repertory grid technique to investigate how a sample of 27 student teachers in Hong Kong developed a personal sense of teaching efficacy. The analysis indicated that the third year students' perceptions were more homogenous than were those of the first year students. The results also indicated that teaching efficacy was viewed in terms of the dimensions of concern for instructional participation and learning needs of pupils, communication and relationships with pupils, academic knowledge and teaching skills, lesson preparation, management of class discipline, teaching success, teaching commitment, and a sense of self-confidence. Experiences of teaching practice, electives, pupils, and teaching practice supervisors (Electives) were the major sources for the development of a sense of teaching efficacy. Implications of how those aspects of teacher training can be more effective in engendering a sense of efficacy in the student teachers are discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410050027982]

Measures of Chinese character recognition, vocabulary, and interest in reading were administered to 92 second grade children in Hong Kong, while questionnaires on parental literacy practices were administered to their parents. In a hierarchical regression equation, maternal education, children's age and vocabulary skill predicted 18% of the variance in reading, while home literacy practices and children's literacy self-efficacy predicted an additional unique 19% of the variance in Chinese reading skill. Results underscore the importance of some early home literacy practices for reading achievement, even among children who are already receiving formal literacy instruction.
[Copyright of Early Education & Development is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15566935eed1601_1 ]

A number of studies have indicated that the successful pedagogical use of technology depends on teachers' attitudes and acceptance towards technology. In order to predict and understand teachers' technology use and acceptance, a well- defined framework is essential. The purpose of the present paper attempts to explore a model to understand teacher acceptance of e-learning technology. A self-reported questionnaire was designed to examine teacher acceptance and attitude towards an online learning platform. Data were collected from 152 in-service teachers who were studying in a part-time teacher education program in Hong Kong. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used as the core framework for analysis while additional constructs were added in order to find a better model to understand teacher acceptance of e-learning technology. A composite model including five constructs, namely, intention to use, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, subjective norm and computer self-efficacy, were formed and tested in the study. LISREL was used in the data analysis. It was found that subjective norm and computer self-efficacy serve as the two significant perception anchors of the fundamental constructs in TAM. However, contrary to previous literature, perceived ease of use became the sole determinant to the prediction of intention to use, while perceived usefulness was non-significant to the prediction of intention to use. Altogether, subjective norm, computer self- efficacy and perceived ease of use were able to explain 68 percent of the variance observed in users' intention to use the e-learning system. Implications to teacher education and teacher professional development are discussed.
[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/10.1080/13598660802232779]

Emotional intelligence (intrapersonal and interpersonal) and general teacher self-efficacy were assessed to represent personal resources facilitating active and passive coping in a sample of 273 Chinese prospective and in-service teachers in Hong Kong. Intrapersonal emotional intelligence and interpersonal emotional intelligence were found to predict significantly active coping strategy, but teacher self-efficacy did not contribute independently to the prediction of active coping even though there was some evidence that teacher self-efficacy might interact with intrapersonal emotional intelligence in the prediction of active coping, especially for male teachers. The implications of the findings for preventive intervention efforts to combat teacher stress through teaching to enhance emotional intelligence are discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410701668372]

This article reports the development of a teacher self-efficacy scale that aims to accommodate the complexity of teacher functioning in secondary schools in times of education reforms in Hong Kong. The scale was designed to assess six domains of teacher self-efficacy: teaching highly able learners, classroom management, guidance and counselling, student engagement, teaching to accommodate diversity, and teaching for enriched learning. The total scale and the six subscales were evaluated based on the responses of 159 Hong Kong Chinese prospective and in-service teachers for internal consistency and construct validity, and for convergent and discriminant validation with external measures.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410701491833]

The development and evaluation of science students' metacognition, learning processes and self-efficacy are important for improving science education. This paper reports on the development of an empirical self-report instrument for providing a measure of students' metacognition, self-efficacy and constructivist science learning processes. A review of the range of literature related to metacognition, self-regulation and constructivist learning processes resulted in the development of an initial bilingual (English and traditional Chinese) instrument composed of 72 items. This instrument was completed by 465 Hong Kong high school students. The data collected were subjected to exploratory factor analysis and Rasch analysis. The subsequent refinement process resulted in a final version of the Self-Efficacy and Metacognition Learning Inventory—Science (SEMLI-S) consisting of 30 items that can be used for either analysing and focusing on any or all of its dimensions or for assigning scores to individuals that enable comparison between them in relation to their metacognitive science learning orientations.
[Copyright of International Journal of Science Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500690701482493]

This study examined the relationships between components of leadership giftedness and multiple intelligences among 510 Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong. These students perceived their strengths in intrapersonal, interpersonal and verbal-linguistic intelligences, and their weaknesses in bodily-kinesthetic and naturalist intelligences. They also rated themselves higher on leadership flexibility and goal orientation than on leadership self-efficacy. In predicting the three leadership components, intrapersonal and verbal-linguistic intelligences emerged as common and significant predictors, suggesting that self-reflection and self-management skills as well as a good command of language use were important in leadership. Other significant predictors such as logical-mathematical intelligence for leadership self-efficacy as well as goal orientation and interpersonal intelligence for leadership flexibility suggested that critical thinking might be important for the sense of confidence or efficacy and the vision of goals, whereas relational or people skills might be important for the openness to different options. Students who were classified high on both verbal-linguistic intelligence and personal intelligences, high on one and low on the other, and low on both were found to be generally high, medium and low on all three leadership components, respectively. Implications of the findings for inferring different levels of components of leadership giftedness from specific intelligences and for developing leadership training programs are discussed.
[Copyright of High Ability Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598130701709749]