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

The advantages and disadvantages of ability grouping for student achievement are strongly contested, with studies presenting different results. However, much of this research has focused on class-level or subject-level ability grouping. Relatively less research has focused on school-level ability grouping. More importantly, the role of teacher support has often been neglected in the ability grouping literature. The aim of this study was to shed light on the under-investigated area of school-level ability grouping, with teacher support examined as a crucial theoretical mechanism. We examined whether teacher support plays a mediating and/or moderating role in terms of how school-level ability grouping is related to student achievement in English and mathematics. The participants were 554 Hong Kong secondary students from the high- (Band 1), medium- (Band 2), and low- (Band 3) ability groups. The results indicate that students from high-ability groups enjoyed greater levels of teacher support, which partly explains their higher levels of achievement. This finding supports a mediation mechanism. Moreover, the results also provide support for a moderation mechanism. When students in low-ability groups received high levels of teacher support, they were able to achieve as much as students in the high-ability groups, in English but not for math. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The contribution of social context to school bullying was examined from the self-determination theory perspective in this longitudinal study of 536 adolescents from 3 secondary schools in Hong Kong. Latent class growth analysis of the student-reported data at 5 time points from grade 7 to grade 9 identified 4 groups of students: bullies (9.8%), victims (3.0%), bully-victims (9.4%), and typical students (77.8%). There was a significant association between academic tracking and group membership. Students from the school with the lowest academic performance had a greater chance of being victims and bully-victims. Longitudinal data showed that all 4 groups tended to report less victimization over the years. The victims and the typical students also had a tendency to report less bullying over the years, but this tendency was reversed for bullies and bully-victims. Perceived support from teachers for relatedness significantly predicted membership of the groups of bullies and victims. Students with higher perceived support for relatedness from their teachers had a significantly lower likelihood of being bullies or victims. The findings have implications for the theory and practice of preventive interventions in school bullying.
[Copyright © 2014 American Psychological Association.]

This study investigated the contribution of school contextual factors and intrapersonal factors to school satisfaction among a sample of Hong Kong Chinese primary school children. A total of 760 children completed the School Satisfaction Subscale of the Multidimensional Life Satisfaction Scale for Children along with self-report measures of intrapersonal factors (self-esteem and hope) and school-related factors (teacher support, peer support, peer conflict, peer victimisation and academic performance). Findings revealed teacher support as the most significant predictor of school satisfaction across grades, followed by academic performance. Hope was found to be a statistically significant mediator of school satisfaction across gender, whereas self-esteem did not act as a potential mediator except in sub-samples of girls and Grade 4 students. The findings lend support to using developmental ecological perspective and cognitive mediation models in studying school satisfaction. The implications of the findings for future research and educational practice were discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410903494452]

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 ]