The purpose of this article is to explore the influence of a customized continuing professional development (PE-CPD) programme on PE teachers’ perceived physical literacy and efficacy beliefs in Hong Kong. Individual and focus group interviews were conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of the participants’ CPD experiences and to explore the programme’s influence on their perceived physical literacy and efficacy beliefs. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the interview data. Results revealed that all participants underwent certain immediate and intermediate changes in relation to their self-perceptions of physical literacy and teaching efficacy while completing the customised PE-CPD programme. It was concluded that stakeholders should address the importance of developing teachers’ physical literacy and self-efficacy through similar programmes, in order to provide quality physical education (QPE) in school curricula and in turn enhance students’ physical literacy. Copyright © 2021 Springer Nature B.V.

Purpose: The current study aimed to evaluate the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on sleep hygiene, anxiety levels, perceived stress, and research output among postgraduate research students in Hong Kong. Methods: An online survey was developed and distributed to Hong Kong postgraduate research students. The sleep hygiene, anxiety levels, and perceived stress during the outbreak of COVID-19 were assessed. Questions about COVID-19’s impact on research outputs were asked. Results: A total of 108 (response rate, 72%) full-time postgraduate students (PhD, 64%; M Phil, 8%; and Masters, 28%) participated. Approximately 83% of students reported poor sleep hygiene. Similarly, nearly 76% of students reported mild to severe levels of self-perceived anxiety levels. Most of the respondents (89%) expressed a moderate level of perceived stress. Sleep hygiene scores were moderately associated with anxiety levels (r = 0.384, p < 0.01) and perceived stress scores (r = 0.423, p < 0.01). Perceived stress was strongly correlated with anxiety levels (r = 0.601, p < 0.01). A hierarchical regression analysis revealed a significant association between respondents’ ethnicity (B = − 0.923, p = 0.003), past medical history (such as hypertension, diabetes, and musculoskeletal disorders) (B = 1.112, p = 0.005), or poor sleep hygiene (B = 0.259, p = 0.000) and high levels of perceived stress. Additionally, prior medical history (such as hypertension, diabetes, and musculoskeletal disorders) (B = 1.957, p = 0.001) and poor sleep hygiene (B = 0.312, p = 0.000) were found to be strongly related to anxiety levels among postgraduate research students. Conclusion: This is the first study that highlights poor sleep hygiene, moderate-to-severe levels of anxiety, and perceived stress during the COVID-19 pandemic in postgraduate research students in Hong Kong. These findings will help educators to prepare strategies to alleviate the stress and psychological problems in postgraduate students.

This study explores how students in a joint process of knowledge construction through the use of multilingual and multimodal resources in groups promotes the learning of scientific concepts in the context of laboratory work. Inductive qualitative discourse analysis was conducted to examine how students’ translanguage in a group completing tasks in two Grade 10 secondary science labs (biology and chemistry) in a Hong Kong EMI secondary school and how such a joint process of knowledge construction promotes the learning of scientific concepts. Using translanguaging as a theoretical framework, the analysis shows that even though schools have imposed an English-only policy, students use their linguistic and semiotic resources to both co-construct their scientific knowledge and practise their science apprenticeship. Translanguaging plays a role in mediating the students’ understanding of science, facilitating peer work and creating an enjoyable learning environment in the lab. The result implies that translanguaging as a pedagogical tool may create a space for content subject learning in Hong Kong EMI school setting. Copyright © 2021 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

For performing arts education, Sage on the stage and Learn from the Masters were halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and so did everything else. All lectures, tutorials and other face-to-face skill-based training sections were cancelled and were replaced by the online model. Such a model was only seen as one of the supplementary components for performing arts education in the past. From January 2020, this online pedagogy was inevitably placed to surmount the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The social distancing measures demanded the blended pedagogy into a new online approach, in which the traditional face-to-face teaching to be replaced by synchronous online learning (facilitated by technologies such as Zoom, Cisco Webex, Google Class, Panopto etc.). Meanwhile, to offer opportunities for cognitive participation which allows students to process the learning and be reflective, webinar and innovative performance projects were launched from the concept of ‘flipped classroom and outcome-based education.’ This mixed approach (blended learning, flipped classroom, and outcome-based education) is described as ‘hybrid learning’ in this study.The ‘hybrid learning’ pedagogy is implemented at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) for all teaching activities in the 2nd semester 2020/2021 to overcome the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A questionnaire survey about how it affected the performing arts education, and how the new pedagogy was implemented took place in July 2020. The survey results from both the teachers (76) and students (163) share lessons, insights, and new understandings on teaching and learning online. Hybrid learning has been widely investigated and researched, yet study on hybrid learning in performing arts such as creative art, theatre art and music, remains insufficient. This study fills the research gap. Copyright © 2021 Springer Nature B.V.

STEM education is an important approach for preparing students for a competitive workforce with essential skills in the 21st century. However, successfully implementing STEM education in primary and secondary schools presents a variety of challenges. The study suggests that a neglected challenge in the literature is how to sustain teachers’ positive emotions toward STEM educational work, which may cause teachers to be more engaged in, motived by, and committed to STEM education. Therefore, the study aims to contribute to the literature by investigating the mechanism of the construction and suitability of teachers’ emotions toward STEM educational work based on a single case study conducted in Hong Kong from the social constructionist perspective. The major findings of the study indicate that (1) positive emotions toward STEM educational work may be constructed by the teacher’s positive interpretation of the work, i.e., STEM educational work as the facilitator of students’ overall development and that (2) positive emotions toward STEM educational work may be sustained by enabling school institutions to have the elements of shared power, administrative support, and the value of a whole-person education. Copyright © 2021 MDPI AG

This paper draws on Basil Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse and practice to explain the controversy surrounding civic education in Hong Kong, through the case of a compulsory secondary school subject called Liberal Studies (LS). The distinct advantage of a Bernsteinian approach is that its conceptual grammar cogently captures the contentious nature of LS and locates the structural autonomy of teachers. This article highlights the fragmented nature of the LS curriculum, which attests to a historical legacy of the Hong Kong education system that favours a subject-based curriculum in practice and a managerialist approach to teacher staffing. These institutional parameters exert profound influences on LS teachers’ modalities of practice. This study contributes to the burgeoning interest in applying Bernsteinian scholarship to the East-Asian region by nuancing the role of teachers in mediating the contentious LS curriculum and implementing civic education. Finally, further application of the Bernsteinian approach will be discussed. Copyright © 2021 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

This paper reports on a longitudinal case study of a Hong Kong early career ESL (English as a second language) secondary teacher, Joyce (pseudonym), who experienced different stages of personal–professional development over seven–eight years (August 2013–December 2020), as follows: (1) entering, and engaging, in teaching for five–six years, upon graduation from a local teacher education BA degree program in summer 2013; (2) resigning from her full-time teaching position and leaving the teaching profession, in response to an “insulting” classroom revisit in her third school; (3) working in an NGO for a short time, after “recovery” from the “insulting” event; and (4) weighing possibilities for resuming teaching, after leaving the NGO in 2019. Drawing on multiple data that were collected over seven–eight years, including interviews, informal communications, and autobiography, this study aimed to examine the issues of teacher attrition and sustainable professional development, in relation to teacher agency and teacher identity, in Hong Kong secondary school contexts. The findings revealed that school and social contexts intertwined with personal experiences, culminating in Joyce’s leaving or staying in the teaching profession. Through focusing on Joyce’s long-term experiences of becoming and being an ESL teacher, the findings shed light on the affordances for, and constraints upon, teacher agency and teacher identity in school contexts. Copyright © 2021 MDPI AG

This study investigates the influences of process-based instruction (PBI) on students' self-regulated learning (SRL) strategy use in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing. Participants were 1521 fourth to sixth graders in Hong Kong primary schools. The students, in response to a questionnaire, reported that their English teachers used PBI at a high frequency in the classroom, while the students employed SRL strategies at a medium frequency. No significant differences in SRL strategy use were found across the three grade levels. Results of structural equation modelling (SEM) indicate that instruction at the before-writing stage had the strongest influence on the students' use of SRL strategies; instruction at the after-writing stage significantly impacted their use of self-initiating, self-monitoring and revising strategies; teaching writing at the while-writing stage had very little influence on the students' SRL strategy use. Implications for future research are discussed and suggestions for EFL teachers to improve their students' SRL strategy use in writing through PBI are included. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Infants and toddlers (birth to age 3) learn what it means to be members of, and to belong to and be accepted by, their societies by adopting behaviors, attitudes, manners, and ways of thinking that are deeply rooted in what is valued in their culture. Infant and toddler teachers play a pivotal role as transmitters and maintainers of culture when they make decisions about the curriculum, engage in caregiving interactions, make pedagogical decisions, and use language. Cultural meanings ascribed to teachers’ practices in 1-year-old care in the United States and Hong Kong were examined using video data and transcripts of video-elicited focus group discussions. Three important areas in which cultural transmission differed between the United States and Hong Kong relate to: egalitarian versus hierarchical societal structure; individualism versus collectivism; and different goals for independence. Social learning theory and ecological systems theory framed this study and informed interpretation of results. Copyright © 2021 Taylor & Francis Inc.

This paper explores the development of academic sociology in Hong Kong since the expansion of higher education and increased student enrolment in the nineties. Colleges gained university titles and sociology departments matured as a result. I attempt to trace the current state of sociology in teaching programs and research directions. I conclude with a discussion of future developments with specific reference to the repositioning of Hong Kong within sociology as the former British colony continue to negotiate, navigate and grapple its relationship with Mainland China both as a productive site for sociological research and a reference point to be different in method. Copyright © 2021 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.