Social capital accrued via cross-racial/ethnic networks plays an important role in the adjustment, persistence and success for minority groups of university students. Yet, few studies offered insight into how intercultural social capital impacts learning and socialising experiences among minority students in non-Western contexts. Drawing on interviews with minority university students in Hong Kong, this study canvassed their intercultural networking, its influences and institutional factors that conditioned its accessibility. Findings showed that participants garnered a full array of social capital in ethnic minority cliques, whereas their connections with institutional agents were more inclined to pastoral care rather than academic advising and mentor services. This study unearthed a campus environment wherein a monolithic Chinese/Cantonese culture and de facto racial/ethnic-segregation contributed to their restricted academic/social engagements with other counterparts and added to the manifestations of marginalisation in the literature that has been preoccupied with racial lines around the Black-White binary in Western contexts. Copyright © 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

With a focus on the neglected ‘L2 learning experience’ component in Dörnyei’s L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS), this study investigated secondary students’ L2 motivation in the context of online English private tutoring (EPT). Through narrative inquiry, students narrated their EPT experience online and reflected on it in comparison with that in the face-to-face environment. Through an initial questionnaire, in-depth interviews and follow-up conversations with 12 senior secondary students in Hong Kong, the study revealed the participants’ generally negative L2 learning experience in online EPT. This negativity stemmed from constant distractions and poor concentration, limited interaction with the tutor and peers and insufficient learning support in the online environment. These experiences disengaged and demotivated the students in the language learning process. The findings contribute to our understanding of the L2 learning experience component in L2MSS and the impact of L2 contexts on students’ L2 motivation. The study indicates that, for our participants, there are some irreplaceable elements in face-to-face tutoring (e.g. physical proximity, facial expressions), lack of which affected students’ engagement and motivation. This highlights the importance of researchers and practitioners in language education taking into account learners’ situated contexts and immediate learning environment when conducting relevant studies on L2 motivation. Copyright © 2024 Association for Language Learning.

During COVID-19, universities are reconfiguring learning environments and increasing flexibility in course offerings. Teachers have found synchronous hybrid teaching challenging with many students preferring online to in-person classroom attendance. Understanding students’ decision-making as to where, when and how they choose to learn will be critical in informing the design of learning spaces and courses. This survey-based study of 369 undergraduates across disciplines explored the relationships between students’ backgrounds and psychological factors (self-efficacy for online learning, conceptions of learning, perceptions of previous online course experiences) and student choices of learning spaces for synchronous online learning. While pre-pandemic studies in Western contexts identified non-traditional student characteristics as major factors associated with students’ choices of learning spaces (i.e., learning online at home), this Hong Kong study found significant associations between undergraduates’ choices, their origin and the disciplines. Logistic regression indicated those who preferred stimulating education and cooperative learning or perceived their previous online course experiences as having clearer goals had greater odds of attending classes synchronously online on campus from locations different from the scheduled teaching spaces. Qualitative analysis suggests personality, self-regulation and the university’s social and organisational structures as factors to consider in future studies of student choices of learning spaces. Implications for practice or policy: * Higher education providers may need to diversify course designs to cater to undergraduates’ different hybrid learning preferences and expectations in the post-pandemic return to campus. * The first step for online course teachers is to help their students to build a higher level of self-efficacy for online learning. * Course teachers can motivate students to take courses online by clarifying their

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.

Publication pressure is perceived to be filtering down into doctoral education worldwide. We explore the causes and effects of the perceived centrality of publishing among doctoral students, emphasising the impact of publication pressure on students’ identity trajectories. We draw on a qualitative analysis of 90 mainland Chinese doctoral students at universities in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. We find that the credentialisation of publications in the increasingly competitive and publication-dominant academic labour market results in publishing-centred doctoral journeys. Our key finding is that the centrality of publishing affects every aspect of identity trajectory development: it causes doctoral students to commodify knowledge production, devalues coursework, conference participation, and teaching assistantships, encourages students to regard their supervisors as publishing facilitators and their peers as rivals rather than collaborators, and marginalises engagement with external stakeholders. In discussing these dimensions, we emphasise the need for a more comprehensive evaluation of candidates’ abilities and honours in academic recruitment and call for policies to curtail the overemphasis on research output in academic evaluations. © 2022 Society for Research into Higher Education.

College transfer students are those who follow a different trajectory in their higher education journeys than traditional students, completing a sub-degree before pursuing a bachelor’s degree at a university. While the possibility of transferring makes higher education accessible to these students, previous studies have found that they face various challenges, from issues with course load to language challenges. This study aims to examine (1) the critical factors contributing to the success of transfer students in a language course; and (2) how transfer students perform better or worse than those who enter university directly. This study conducted learning analytics with 700 college transfer students in Hong Kong, retrieving their demographic and learning data from the learning management system and the university academic registry. The results suggest that English exam scores, current semester GPA, graduating GPA at community college and current course load are important predictors of transfer students’ success in language courses. This study also finds that transfer students have lower levels of language proficiency than direct entrants. It concludes with specific recommendations to make higher education more accessible to transfer students and suggestions on how to use learning analytics to track students with different trajectories. © The Author(s) 2023.

This research project involved a mixed-methods study investigating language-related challenges of first-year students at an English Medium Instruction (EMI) university in Hong Kong. The two-phased sequential study employed a questionnaire survey and semi-structured student interviews. The survey and interview findings indicate that first-year students face a number of language-related academic challenges during their first year at an EMI university in writing, reading, speaking, and listening, many of which appear to stem from lower levels of vocabulary knowledge in English, unfamiliarity with academic and technical terminology, and limited exposure to varieties of English. Additionally, the findings suggest that these challenges can vary significantly based on background and first language, relating specifically to three different demographic student groups: local Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking students, Putonghua-speaking mainland Chinese students, and non-Chinese speaking local and international students. © 2023 The Author(s).

This study aimed to examine university students’ perceptions of teacher care overall and in the three constructs of pedagogical care, holistic care and relational care, to consider their inclusion in quality enhancement models. Quantitative research using self-administrated online survey was conducted with undergraduates in Hong Kong, Macau, Republic of Fiji, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. Based on the descriptive and paired-sample t -test analyses, empirical results have shown that university students perceived teacher care as important. They ascribed the highest importance to relational care, followed by pedagogical care and holistic care. This research advocates recognising the importance of teacher care in university education and integrating it into higher education pedagogy. This article proposes a caring quality mechanism for enhancing teaching quality, to address the inadequacy of the audit-focused quality system. © 2022 Informa UK Limited.

This empirical study presents a thematic analysis of the Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) framework from the perspectives of senior managers and program manager in Hong Kong. Data were collected from 25 in-depth interviews with self-financing institutions in Hong Kong. They were processed qualitatively through thematic analysis. The study has found uncovered attributes of (1) campus environment and facilities (2) peer and teacher influence (3) career opportunity (4) program design and (5) teacher quality and effectiveness in the enrollment stage of the SEM process from both senior and program management perspectives. A new insightful SEM framework has been developed. The results can be useful at the management level within Hong Kong’s higher education institutions as they seek to improve their institutions’ strategic and marketing plans by incorporating SEM as a means of increasing student enrollment and retention, enhancing institutional revenues. © 2020 Informa UK Limited.

Background: Students’ positive perceptions of scientists or engineers have been reported to be positively related to their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career aspirations. However, other research indicates that positive perceptions of experts in these fields might not necessarily lead to students’ pursuit of STEM careers. Self-concept, defined as one’s perceived abilities in specific academic domains, likely plays a moderating role in the relationship between perceptions and career aspirations according to the motivational theory of role modelling. Moreover, students’ perceptions of STEM professionals might be sourced from STEM-related media and school experiences. Therefore, through running a moderated mediation model, this study examined whether and how the influences of media consumption and school STEM learning opportunities on career aspirations would be mediated by perceptions of STEM professionals, and whether the mediation effect would be conditional on students’ self-concept. Methods: Data were collected through an online survey of 608 primary and secondary school students from Hong Kong, and were analysed using structural equation modelling. Results: Results revealed that the students’ positive perceptions of STEM professionals were positively associated with their career aspirations, and mediated the links from media consumption and school opportunities to career aspirations. In addition, this mediated pathway depended on STEM self-concept, such that perceptions of STEM professionals were only linked with STEM career aspirations for adolescents with average or high levels of self-concept. Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest the need to pay attention to the STEM perceptions and self-concept interaction while designing and implementing learning activities to connect a diversity of students with STEM careers. It is not only important to foster students’ self-concept, but also to enrich their knowledge of diverse occupations