A total of 199 students from a school in Hong Kong responded to 25 items in a survey. Principal components analysis found 4 school motivation factors consistent with the Task, Effort, Competitivenes and Praise scales of the McInerney et al. Inventory of School Motivation, 1 education aspiration factor and 1 career aspiration factor. The correlations indicated significant relations between the motivation factors and the aspiration factors. A path model applying a structural equation modeling approach found that Task, Effort and Competitiveness orientations had relatively stronger impacts on education aspirations whereas Task and Praise had stronger impacts on career aspirations. Analysis of variance found that grade 7 students had significantly higher Task, Effort and Praise scores and higher career aspirations than students from grades 9 and 11. The drastic drop from grade 7 of motivation scores--especially Task and Effort, both pertaining to a mastery orientation dimension that has been assumed to be a major driving force for excellence-calls for urgent attention to student motivation in junior secondary classes.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]

The primary purpose of this study was to test for the validity of a Chinese version of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (C-BDI-II) for use with Hong Kong community (i.e., nonclinical) adolescents. Based on a randomized triadic split of the data (N = 1460), we conducted exploratory factor analysis on Group1 (n = 486) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) within the framework of structural equation modeling on Groups 2 (n = 487) and 3 (n = 487); the second CFA served as a cross-validation of the determined factor structure. Factor analytic results, based on a 4-factor structure that comprised 1 2nd-order general factor of Depression and 3 1st-order factors representing Negative Attitude, Performance Difficulty, and Somatic Elements, replicated those reported previously for Canadian (Byrne&Baron, 1993), Swedish (Byrne, Baron, Larsson,&Melin, 1995), and Bulgarian (Byrne, Baron,&Balev, 1998) nonclinical adolescents. Based on this cross-validated factor structure, findings related to internal consistency reliability, stability over a 6-month time lag, and relations with relevant external criteria provided strong support for the valid use of the C-BDI-II in measuring depressive symptoms for Hong Kong community adolescents.
[Copyright of International Journal of Testing is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327574ijt0403_1]

The authors investigated what and how instructional practices are related to students' motivation and performance in writing. The participants were 6 teacher interns and their (N = 209) secondary-school students in Hong Kong. In a 3-session instruction unit, the teacher interns taught their students how to write an expository essay. The students completed the essay and then a questionnaire to report their motivation in the task and their perception of the instruction. Results of structural equation modeling showed that students' motivation mediated the effects of instructional practices on writing performance. The authors found that when the teachers adopted more motivating teaching strategies, the students were more motivated. When the students were more motivated, they, in turn, had better performance in writing.
[Copyright of Journal of Experimental Education is the property of Routledge . Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JEXE.75.2.145-164 ]

Surveys at a university in Hong Kong indicated that graduates of discrete part-time programmes perceived significantly higher development in eight out of nine graduate capabilities than their counterparts in full-time programmes. Several possible explanations are considered and rejected. The conventional view that capabilities are nurtured through immersion in a stimulating campus environment was not applicable, as the part-time students spent less time on campus than the full-time ones. Other data in the survey suggested that the respective teaching and learning environments might be the principal cause. It appeared that the part-time courses had more teacher-student interaction, and were more likely to employ active learning approaches. Structural equation modelling was used to examine this possible explanation. A model in which the type of teaching and teacher-student relationships impacted upon capability development showed a good fit to the data. The greatest effect was from teaching approaches requiring active student involvement and aiming for understanding. There was a mutually reinforcing effect from good teacher-student relationships. The results suggest that a strong effect on the development of graduate capabilities may come through employing active learning approaches.
[Copyright of Studies in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075070500043127]

The expansion in the number of people entering higher education has resulted in a substantial increase in the proportion of students enrolling in nontraditional modes, such as part-time study. This study examined the question of whether part-time study curtails the development of the types of intellectual capabilities needed for a knowledge-based economy, because the students would have markedly less exposure to a stimulating campus environment than their full-time counterparts. Graduates from discrete full- and part-time programs from 1 university in Hong Kong completed a survey seeking perceptions of the nurturing of a range of capabilities, together with measures of teacher-student relationships and type of teaching experienced. Two hypotheses were tested by structural equation modeling: (a) the same mechanism for capability development operated for full- and part-time modes and (b) the principal element of the mechanism was the nature of teaching and the quality of teacher-student interaction. Hypothesis 1 was supported because configural invariance between hypothesized models for capability development between the 2 modes was found. Hypothesis 2 was also supported because the models showed that the principal influence on capability development came from teaching for understanding, through promoting active learning experiences and the degree and quality of teacher-student interaction.
[Copyright of Structural Equation Modeling is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15328007sem1302_6]