Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought challenges to families around the world. The prolonged school closures in Hong Kong have forced young students to stay at home and adapt to remote learning for over a year, putting their mental health conditions at risk. Focusing on primary school students and their parents, the main objective of our research is to investigate the socioemotional factors and their associations with mental health conditions. Methods: A total of 700 Hong Kong primary schoolers (mean age = 8.2) reported their emotional experiences, loneliness, and academic self-concept via a user-friendly online survey; 537 parents reported depression and anxiety, perceived child depression and anxiety, and social support. Responses from students and parents were paired to account for the family context. Structural Equation Modeling was used for correlations and regressions. Results: The results of students’ responses showed that positive emotional experiences were negatively associated with loneliness and positively related to academic self-concept among students. Furthermore, the paired sample results showed that, during the one-year societal lockdown and remote learning period, the socioemotional factors were associated with mental health conditions among primary school students and their parents. Among our family sample in Hong Kong, evidence supports the unique negative association between students-reported positive emotional experiences and parents-reported child depression and anxiety, as well as between social support and parents’ depression and anxiety. Conclusions: These findings highlighted the associations between socioemotional factors and mental health among young primary schoolers during the societal lockdown. We thus call for more attention to the societal lockdown and remote learning context, especially since the social distancing practice could be “the new normal” for our society to handle the future pandemic crisis. Copyright © 2023 The Author

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about an unprecedented challenge to global education. It has changed how many of us, especially our children, learn and gain valuable insights into parenting needs concerning online learning, and digital literacy is more important than ever. However, the digital divide and educational equity have been sharpened amidst the ongoing pandemic; people without access to Information and Communications Technologies are even more disadvantaged than before. In Hong Kong, remote learning has increased exponentially since the outbreak in early 2020, and it has been continued under the “new normal”- which students and educators need to manage and integrate technology into their everyday teaching and learning cycle. When it is specifically essential to ensure equal and inclusive access to remote learning for students, parental involvement should arouse more prominent attention. The emerging problem has been shifting from the opportunity of access to technology to digitally illiterate parents. Hence, this paper will discuss the long-lasting issue between the digital divide and education inequality in Hong Kong, and recommend bridging the digital divide should focus more on nurturing parental digital citizenship and literacy so they can appropriately facilitate the co-learning process with their children in this “new normal” era effectively. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

While online learning has been widely adopted to substitute in-person schooling and sustain children's learning at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, some schools have implemented offline distance learning instead of depending on technology. This case study documented how offline home learning focusing on child-centredness and authentic learning experiences was implemented through home and school involvement in a typical preschool in Hong Kong. This study aimed at examining the phenomenon of this home learning practice and its effectiveness from the perspectives of school administrators (n = 3), teachers (n = 8), and parents (n = 18). Qualitative data collected from interviews and supplemental school documents revealed that the effective implementation of offline home learning primarily depended on (1) a child-centred approach with individualized learning support and (2) family-based support tailored for diverse families. The findings also suggested that a connection among peers was lacking as a result of social distancing and limits on physical interactions. Based on the findings, implications for further studies and parent education for strengthening competence in home learning are discussed. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.

The COVID‐19 pandemic has triggered an unexpected digital revolution, speeding up universities' digital transformation worldwide. It has brought heavy disruptions to travel and mobility worldwide, but it drives the opportunity for hosting region‐wide or even international academic exchanges through learning programs, workshops, and conferences via an alternative online mode. This study reports on a case study of a 1‐month online aviation learning program that engaged 108 university students from Mainland China and Hong Kong during the lockdown. At first, we first recruited students in Hong Kong; however, the program registration was unsatisfactory. This could be attributed to the students' perceived future aviation career prospects and readiness of emergent remote teaching during the pandemic. In the program, we designed an alternative blended learning approach to attract students to sustain their aviation learning. First, we transformed the activities from face‐to‐face (F2F) to online settings using digital technologies including flight simulation and virtual visits in a web‐conferencing environment. Second, we extended the reach of the event and attracted a larger audience in the neighbouring regions in Mainland China. It turned out that we could successfully recruit 108 students from 20 cities. In the end, students' interviews and motivational surveys indicated that this online learning experience could effectively enhance students' knowledge and motivational gain. Since the government has relaxed the policy of homeschooling, we organised two F2F meetings for students in Hong Kong to connect them together. This blended mode of teaching favoured the students in Hong Kong who showed a greater motivation than those in Mainland China. Furthermore, follow‐up interviews for teachers revealed how they invest in new technological equipment and knowledge to support the radical changes. Overall, the virtual event eliminates geographical barriers which successfully motivate

There is a strong need for educators to change the way they conduct aviation education to bring up future professionals in the industry. To cope with the COVID-19 challenge, creative online distance learning approaches become necessary. This article shows how an online lab approach offers social and cognitive support for engineering students to sustain their learning. A series of learning activities including flight simulation and virtual tours were held in an online lab setting by aviation professionals and lecturers at a university in Hong Kong to 35 undergraduate engineering students. The online lab encouraged students to apply knowledge into practice and develop their theoretical and conceptual knowledge through activities. Workshops focusing on aviation laboratory education aimed at students’ development of aviation theoretical and technical knowledge, collaborative skills, field-specific, and practical skills. A mixed research method was employed with the use of a motivational survey, teachers’ observation, and semi-structured interviews to understand students’ learning perceptions. This study found that the online laboratory activities could effectively motivate students to learn about aviation and improve their aviation knowledge cognitively and socially. It is recommended for online engineering educators to use lab technologies to teach aviation and related disciplines for future career preparation. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.

Hong Kong was one of the first places hit with the COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020 and has since responded with several periods of full or partial school suspension, during which teaching and learning often occurred remotely using digital means. During this time, collecting research data and testing students have become more difficult than before. In this article, we report on a large-scale digital literacy (DL) performance assessment in Hong Kong that had to be conducted in a mix of modes--onsite, online supported, and online self-directed--during the pandemic. We discuss the administrative and methodological challenges of assessing DL, and explore preliminary data on the associations between student performance and the assessment mode adopted. We further discuss potential implications, including for high-stakes testing, and make recommendations for assessing DL remotely. Copyright © 2022 Wiley.

This study compares and contrasts teachers' and students' perceptions of online teaching and learning during the COVID-pandemic in higher education using the co-orientation model. Data were collected from 145 students and 31 teachers in two Hong Kong higher education institutions. The findings show that teachers were generally more negative about online teaching and learning than students, but such negative views should be reconsidered as students positively evaluated teachers' efforts to various degrees. It is suggested that during future online learning experiences (1) teachers and students set up expectations together to evaluate online interactions, (2) teachers should not be overly concerned about the potential embarrassment of using camera for class activities, and (3) teachers pay more attention to feedback delivery. Understanding these gaps will provide teachers with insights into more strategic communication and planning to manage the expectations and optimise the online experience for both parties. Copyright © 2022 Elsevier.

Making online education effective and engaging has been a policy priority in the higher education (HE) sector since the COVID-19 pandemic arose in 2020. Based on an online survey and qualitative interviews, we examine experiences of HE students and teachers in Hong Kong, and provide recommendations that can enable countries/economies to leverage on the good practices of online education to rejuvenate HE in the post-COVID era. We find a need for greater institutional support beyond its current availability. Students’ perception of online education is less optimistic than what such labeling as “digital natives” suggests. However, with time, online education is being viewed more positively. Teachers find their online education workload to be higher. More female teachers cite difficulties in balancing work and life, while older teachers report more technological difficulties. Since many respondents come from public affairs programs, which emphasize interaction in the classroom, the findings suggest that a rethinking of pedagogical strategies of public affairs education is required. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s).

Despite the increasing number of studies on educational leadership during COVID-19, little attention has been paid to the intersections of different educational experiences and perspectives of school leaders, students, and their families that occur both inside and outside of schools. Drawing on eight case studies of public primary schools in Hong Kong, this article explores the challenges and strategies of online learning with a focus on effective leadership practices for supporting economically disadvantaged students during COVID-19. To incorporate the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, a series of questionnaires were distributed to principals (n = 8), teachers (n = 150), parents (n = 775), lower primary students (n = 855), and upper primary students (n = 850) and interviews were conducted with principals (n = 8), teachers (n = 37), parents (n = 32), and students (n = 62). Findings indicated that school leaders and teacher teams demonstrated strategic leadership practices prioritising and responding to the needs and constraints of economically disadvantaged students and their families. The present study draws attention to leadership encouraging collaboration among schools, families, and the wider community, which has become necessary during the shift to online learning during COVID-19. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s).

This chapter describes a small case study of differentiated instruction and inclusive design practices during a COVID-19-forced migration to online learning at a university in Hong Kong. Fourteen higher education instructors were interviewed, and their responses analyzed thematically. The participants reported that they felt overwhelmed with the workload to consider differentiated instruction initially; their sole focus was on delivering an online teacher-centred class. As they become more confident and familiar with a range of technologies, they started to differentiate instruction. They used student response systems to facilitate learning and focused on engaging learners in smaller groups. Their experiences suggest ways to facilitate differentiated instruction and design inclusive online classes in the higher education sector. Copyright © 2022 Rhona Sharpe, Sue Bennett and Tünde Varga-Atkins.