After the pandemic, education will not go back to a 100% offline mode since the application of e-learning technologies (ELTs) cannot be avoided. Therefore, their impact should be studied for future education development. Most future entrepreneurs are attending school today. Therefore, universities need to supply necessary education to encourage students to cope with future conditions and development. At the same time, due to the increasing attention being paid to the harmony between ecology and prosperity, the sustainability aspect of entrepreneurship education needs to be emphasized as well. This study investigates the impact of ELTs on entrepreneurial education performance (including personal skills, product skills, and business skills), sustainability efficacy, and their impact on sustainability awareness. Data were collected from a master’s degree class on entrepreneurship at a Hong Kong university and SmartPLS was used to analyze the data. It was found that ELTs have a significant relationship with entrepreneurial performance and sustainability efficacy. Meanwhile, sustainability efficacy also has a significant relationship with sustainability awareness. However, no significant relationship between entrepreneurial skills and sustainability awareness was identified. The results indicate that ELTs can improve students’ entrepreneurial skills and sustainability awareness, which proves the effectiveness of ELTs and provides support for their application in future entrepreneurship education. © 2023 by the authors.

More and more students are exploring overseas destinations and English-Medium Instruction (EMI) environments for their postgraduate studies. While it is known that students can often struggle in an EMI environment, the challenges faced by postgraduate students, and the support they receive or need, are not fully understood. By adopting a two-stage qualitative sequential data collection approach, this study explored the experiences and perceptions of full-time postgraduate students from Mainland China studying in a one-year Master of Education programme at a Hong Kong university during their first semester. Data were collected through an online survey ( N = 73) and three in-depth group interviews ( N = 12). The analysis of data offered a holistic understanding of the students’ challenges, needs, and struggles. The findings provide suggestions for support that teachers and programmes can provide to postgraduate students, as well as student self-help support strategies. Several sustainable support strategies are proposed to assist students in adjusting and succeeding in the EMI context at the postgraduate level. © 2023 by the authors.

As typical innovation organizations, the structure and efficiency of cooperation among universities’ innovation behaviors are important influencing factors for regional innovation sustainable development. In 2019, the Chinese government promulgated the “Outline of the Development Plan of The Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Great Bay Area”, which directly promotes a sustainable cooperation network of universities in the Great Bay Area. This study used UCINET to visualize the cooperation network of universities in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao based on the cooperation data generated by 35 universities in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Great Bay Area, jointly establishing 37 professional alliances that developed 888 cooperation ties from 2017 to 2022. The results show that the current cooperative network density of universities in the Great Bay Area is high (density = 0.746), but the cohesion trend is not significant (network centralization = 26.92%); a clear circle structure has been formed. The network exhibits a narrow shape at both ends and widens in the middle; the higher the hierarchical position of universities in the region, the more likely they are to enter the core cooperation network and establish more cooperation relationships. Universities in the marginal circles find it especially difficult to initiate cooperative relationships due to their disadvantageous position in terms of limited resources and a lack of administrative intervention. The current cooperation situation still has room for expansion. © 2023 by the authors.

This paper presents a study on the evaluation of hybrid learning and teaching practices by academics. A mixed research method involving a questionnaire survey and a focus group interview was employed to gather academics’ feedback on their experience in delivering hybrid instruction in a synchronous manner in which on-site and remote students attended classes simultaneously, their students’ hybrid learning effectiveness, and their suggestions for improvement. The questionnaire was administered to 76 academics from a university in Hong Kong where hybrid learning and teaching were implemented, and the focus group interview involved 10 academics. The findings reveal that the participating academics perceived themselves as having an overall high degree of readiness to handle technical issues. They expressed that the students from their hybrid classes had lower levels of interaction, engagement, and motivation than those from traditional face-to-face classes. The participants also reported their challenges regarding hybrid learning and teaching, including heavy workload for lesson preparation and face-to-face and online classroom management, unfamiliarity with interactive teaching design suitable for hybrid classes, and difficulties in monitoring students’ learning process. They provided suggestions for the improvement of hybrid classes, ranging from the provision of technological support to professional development for enhancing students’ online interaction and engagement. These findings contribute to revealing academics’ experience in practising hybrid learning and teaching and identifying ways to address their challenges. © 2023 by the authors.

Active learning has been increasingly important in tertiary education in recent years due to its powerfully favourable impact on students’ learning attitudes and efficacy. Indeed, the way that a classroom is set up has a direct impact on how well students learn and how well teachers teach. The continuous evaluation of students’ learning performance is essential for guiding future classroom renovations and creating a cutting-edge learning environment for both students and teachers. The aims of this paper were to provide a better understanding of the latest development trend of learning mode preference in tertiary education and to investigate any underlying similarities and differences in the perceptions between teachers and students. To support both teaching and learning, an empirical questionnaire survey was conducted among teachers and students in Hong Kong to assess the effectiveness of various active learning techniques and passive learning techniques adopted in tertiary education. Opinion-based data were collected on the perceived benefits and disadvantages of both learning techniques as well as the importance of various classroom design features. To determine the significance of the variations in opinions between teachers and students on the survey responses, descriptive statistical analyses using the mean score and Mann–Whitney U-test were carried out. The results of the Mann–Whitney U-test on the advantages of traditional learning showed that the following variables significantly varied: ‘direct information from the teacher’; ‘timesaving (group discussion may waste time)’ and ‘allow more time for Q&A’. These advantages were generally rated higher from the viewpoint of students rather than teachers. However, no significant difference was established concerning the limitations of traditional learning. The findings of this study can help teachers and instructors to understand how different teaching and learning methods affect students’ ability to learn effectively

E-learning has been proposed as a sustainable delivery method for higher education. During the COVID-19 pandemic, online/e-service-learning was widely adopted around the world as a replacement for face-to-face service learning, providing an opportunity to explore whether e-learning as a sustainable delivery method could be applied to service learning. The present study adopted a qualitative approach to investigate the e-service-learning experiences of Mainland Chinese students studying at a Hong Kong university with regard to their general perceptions about the e-service-learning projects, perceived learning gains, and factors associated with their learning gains. A total of 28 undergraduates who participated in e-service-learning in the 2020/21 academic year were recruited from different faculties of the university. Seven focus groups were established with the participants. The results showed that Mainland Chinese students generally had positive perceptions about their experiences in e-service-learning during the pandemic. They appreciated the convenient and effective online learning and service, although they needed contact that is more direct with service recipients to deepen their reflection. Students perceived that they had improved their problem-solving skills and subject knowledge; they also gained meaningful personal growth and positive emotions through e-service-learning. Facilitators of and barriers to students' effective learning were also identified. The findings provide important evidence for the effectiveness of e-service-learning from the perspective of Mainland Chinese students at Hong Kong universities and the potential of e-service-learning as a sustainable delivery method for service-learning programs in the post-pandemic era. Copyright ©2023 Mdpi.

Globally prevalent, Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) have negative consequences on students’ social, intellectual, emotional, and post-school transition results. While assessment tools exist, the majority of them were developed from the perspective of clinical psychology and/or healthcare. Some are lengthy and commercialized, and some have weak factorial validity. A feasible and practical assessment method, from the perspective of educational psychology and assessment, is required to better accurately and effectively assess the social and academic performance of ASD students in inclusive settings. With an emphasis on teachers’ practice and output in helping students with ASD in inclusive education, this study evaluated the Practice and Product Inventory of Supporting Students with ASD (PPI-SSA) psychometric qualities. PPI-SSA was designed to be practical, concise, and especially suited for quantitative research on ASD. The inventory was administered to 411 teachers in Hong Kong, and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the PPI-SSA’s reliability and validity. A follow-up path analysis examined the concurrent validity of the PPI-SSA, revealing significant pathways between teachers’ intentions to implement inclusive education and each of the respective dimensions within the PPI-SSA. Measurement invariance results showed that the PPI-SSA demonstrated configural, metric, scalar, and residual invariance across primary and secondary teachers. The PPI-SSA, as a non-commercial instrument, has meaningful implications. It can facilitate the efficient collection of more empirical data on the social and academic achievements of students with ASD, informing evidence-based improvement of inclusive practices. It can assist in teachers’ practice to identify the diverse social and academic needs of students with ASD to align with their corresponding adjustments of teaching strategies. Copyright © 2023 by the authors.

Self-financing higher education institutions (SfHEIs) in Hong Kong help boost the local higher education participation rate, but they are labeled as second-tier opportunities for those with academic weaknesses. Students at SfHEIs may develop a negative self-concept that deteriorates their academic performance and psychological wellness. Therefore, it is critical to understand their self-concept and how it is built. From the narrative perspective, a self-concept is the storied experiences or stories that are lived; therefore, this study employs narrative inquiry using 15 SfHEI students to represent the general pattern of the participants’ experiences. This study proves that students at SfHEIs tend to view themselves as losers or inferiors based on their low self-evaluations of their Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE) results, SfHEIs, and career futures. Additionally, this study sheds new light that the loser identity is historically developed from childhood during interactions with parents and teachers, as parents and teachers continuously reinforce the message that enrollment at a publicly funded university is the only way to achieve success in life. Copyright © 2022 by the authors.

Mathematical modeling is considered a bridge to STEM education and has been incorporated into K–12 mathematics curriculums in various countries. However, it has a relatively short history in Hong Kong schools. The lack of high-quality, relevant exemplars of mathematical modeling activities is a challenge to teacher practice in this area. Hence, this study aims to establish a design framework for mathematical modeling activities suitable for teachers and students in Hong Kong. We explore the design and content of the official mathematical modeling exemplars published by the Hong Kong Education Bureau using a document analysis approach. The findings provide the basis for developing a framework to be used in the future design of mathematical modeling activities. Four exemplars were found and analyzed in terms of their structural components, level of learning experience in mathematical modeling, and design characteristics. Based on our findings, we discussed various strategies to enhance the design of a mathematical modeling activity, including setting diversified learning objectives, cross-subject collaboration when formulating the problem context and instructions, designing more activities suitable for average and underperforming students, emphasizing the evaluation of modeling outcomes, and providing relevant supporting materials. Our study thus lays the groundwork for advancing the teaching and learning of mathematical modeling in school contexts. Copyright © 2022 by the authors.

Geopolitical changes worldwide, together with rapid advances in technology, have created a situation where an individual's working life can present many new challenges. Helping students develop the attitudes and skills necessary to adapt to constant change along a career path has become a priority in education. Developing this career adaptability is becoming increasingly important to the sustainability of democracy, the economy, justice, human values, and equality. The authors of this paper argue that to improve the quality of our education system in universities, active learning should play a more important role to enrich the typical lecturing-learning processes. The aim of the study reported here was to examine the impact from implementing a 3-month active learning program that took university students beyond the classroom to increase their career adaptability and self-esteem and to strengthen their meaning in life. A mixed-method approach was adopted and conducted in two phases with 119 undergraduate students in human resources management at a university in Hong Kong. Findings suggested a significant improvement in career adaptability of the students after participating in the program when compared to a control group. However, data did not indicate any significant change in self-esteem and meaning in life in the training group. The findings support the valuable role of active learning as a strategy to enhance students' career adaptability in a changing but sustainable world of employment. Copyright ©2021 MDPI.