This study had two goals. The first was to validate further Sternberg's theory of mental self-government in a cross-cultural setting. The second was to investigate the relationship between thinking styles and teachers' characteristics. Research participants were one hundred ninety-three (65 male and 128 female) in-service teachers studying in the Bachelor of Education degree program and the Postgraduate Certificate in Education program at the University of Hong Kong. The participants responded to the Chinese version of the Thinking Styles Questionnaire for Teachers (TSQT) that has its theoretical foundation in Sternberg's theory of mental self-government. They also provided a range of demographic information such as age, gender, family income, and duration of their teaching experience. Furthermore, they rated themselves on a 5-point Likert scale about their teaching practices and about their perceptions of their school environment. The results of the study showed that the TSQT is a reliable and valid inventory for assessing the thinking styles of primary and secondary school in-service teachers in Hong Kong. Cronbach's alphas ranged from .58 to .75, with a mean of .68 and a median of .66. A principal-axis factor analysis followed by an oblique rotation resulted in two factors that accounted for 73.8% of the variance in the data. Moreover, results from stepwise multiple-regression procedures indicated that six characteristics of teachers were significantly correlated with the thinking styles specified by the theory of mental self-government. These teacher characteristics are gender, professional work experience outside school settings, the degree of enjoying adopting new teaching materials, a tendency for using group projects in assessing student achievement, perceived autonomy for determining their teaching contents, and their rating of the quality of their students. We discussed seven possibilities for using the knowledge about thinking styles to facilitate an enhancement

Technology per se has been seen as a catalyst for reform and change in many schools. This article reviews Hong Kong school practices and government policies and strategies and proposes that technology can act more as a lever than a catalyst for change if supported by broader changes in the education system. The article concludes that certain factors can facilitate this change.
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Unlike many other places in the world, guidance lessons in Hong Kong are taught mainly by class teachers rather than school counsellors. Given the unique educational context of Hong Kong as East meets West and given that guidance is essentially a concept from the West, it is important to investigate what kind of pedagogy is suitable for teaching guidance in Hong Kong. This paper examines what teaching guidance lessons are like in Hong Kong for the researcher and for some primary teachers. A qualitative case study methodology is used. Data are drawn from the author's own experience in a primary school teaching attachment and interviews with guidance professionals, primary school principals, teachers and students in three selected primary schools in Hong Kong. Pedagogical issues for the teaching guidance curriculum are explored and discussed. The researcher argues for a hybrid guidance pedagogy for the teaching of classroom guidance in Hong Kong. Findings are applicable to countries facing similar issues in parallel mixed cultural settings.
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The paper focuses on teachers' cognitions (their beliefs, feelings, and under standings) about subject matter. The teachers discussed in the paper teach English to secondary students in Hong Kong. Their cognitions are all concerned with grammar and grammar pedagogy. Drawing on analyses of quantitative and qualitative data, the paper addresses four questions: 1. Are there associations between particular cognitions about subject matter and specific factors of teacher background? 2. Are there associations between particular cognitions about subject matter and levels of knowledge of subject matter? 3. Are there general patterns in teachers' cognitions about subject matter? 4. Are there patterns of association between teachers' cognitions about subject matter and their perceived pedagogical practice? In relation to the first two questions, survey data from 170 teachers revealed no significant associations between their cognitions about subject matter and such background factors as years of teaching experience and place or subject of first degree. There were, however, interesting patterns of association between the data about the teachers' beliefs and test results indicating those teachers' levels of language proficiency and explicit knowledge of grammar and grammatical terminology. Interviews (supported by classroom observation) were the main source of data relating to the third and fourth questions. Data from 17 teachers revealed patterns of cognitions about subject matter, which appeared to associate with certain pedagogical practices. At the same time, there was considerable variation between individuals. A follow-up paper will examine the uniqueness of the individual teacher's cognitions and of their association with pedagogical practice, using a case-study approach involving classroom data and interview.
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Internationally, English is increasingly being adopted as the language of postsecondary education. In Asia however efforts by universities to promote the use of the English language both inside and outside the classroom may be threatened by the supposed reticence of Asian learners. This paper problematizes Chinese learners alleged reticence by examining how one group of undergraduates at an English medium of instruction university in Hong Kong were able to meet the demands placed upon them for participation in spoken activities within their English for academic purposes classroom. Interviews with students and teachers, classroom observations, audiovisual recordings of classroom interaction and documentary analysis were used to understand how students participated in classroom discussion. The results suggest that learners adopted particular oral roles and drew upon a range of resources in ways that enabled them to conceptualize participation in classroom discussion as, in part, the result of learner agency. Implications for classroom practices in content classrooms traditionally dominated by a transmission mode of teaching are discussed.
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In this study, the author examined the relationship between teaching approaches and thinking styles in teaching. The study parallels previous investigations (Zhang, 2000a, 2000b; Zhang & Sternberg, 2000) of students' learning approaches and thinking styles in learning. Seventy-six in-service teachers from Hong Kong responded to the Approaches to Teaching Inventory (K. Trigwell & M. Prosser, 1996) and the Thinking Styles Inventory in Teaching (E. L. Grigorenko & R. J. Sternberg, 1993) as well as to a range of questions designed to assess the participants' perceptions about their work environment. It was concluded that approach and style are two overlapping constructs with different labels. The differences between approach and style are in degree, but not in kind.
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In 1995 Chan and Hui examined the responses of a sample of Chinese teachers on the Maslach Burnout Inventory and recommended a possible 2-factor rather than the original 3-factor model for the assessment of burnout among Chinese teachers. In the present study, the factor structure of responses to the Chinese version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory in a sample of 1,398 Chinese secondary school guidance teachers was examined using the EQS approach to confirmatory factor analysis. The results showed that a 3-factor model (Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Personal Accomplishment) provided the best fit, with the first two factors highly correlated (r = .80). Internal consistencies for the subscales ranged from .80 to .88.
[Reproduced with permission of author(s) and publisher from: Yuen, Man Tak, Lau, Patrick Siu Ying, Shek, Daniel Tan Lei, & Lam, Man Ping. Confirmatory factor analysis and reliability of the Chinese version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory among guidance teachers in Hong Kong. Psychological Reports, 2002, 91, 1081-1086. © Psychological Reports 2002 Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://ammonsscientific.com/link.php?N=5842]