Ninety university undergraduate students were tested on a number of tasks assessing their recognition of possible and impossible figures, mental rotation, ideational fluency, and self-report artistic and creative characteristics. Scores on the Impossible Figures Task (IFT-14) and the Mental Rotation Test, and self-ratings on the Artistic Characteristics Rating Scale were found to differentiate among Fine Arts students, Architecture students, and students from Arts Faculty disciplines less related to visual-spatial abilities, suggesting that the IFT-14 could be used to assess visual-spatial or visual arts talents. The application of the IFT-14 with the same related measures to a sample of 103 primary and secondary gifted students provided further supporting evidence. Implications of the findings on the development of more sensitive measures for identifying students with visual-spatial or visual arts talents are discussed.
[Copyright of High Ability Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598130802504296]

This paper reports findings from an investigation of the implementation of "assessment for learning" in classroom music instruction in Hong Kong primary schools, focusing on the changes in assessment practice and music teachers' classroom instruction. Qualitative methodology was employed to document the cases of three music teachers. It was found that change in assessment practice in classroom music instruction led to a change in curriculum design which enhanced curricular alignment, as well as change in the mode of instruction which facilitated communication and interaction between teachers and students.
[Copyright of Teacher Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530701644599]

This paper reports on a study conducted in Hong Kong which addresses the question of whether teaching approaches can influence the development of learning outcomes within the context of environmental education, how such outcomes are affected by different academic ability levels, and whether they vary over time. The overall hypothesis is that enquiry teaching is more effective than didactic approaches for the development of environmental understanding, irrespective of students' original academic ability and the time frame of measurement. A quasi-experimental design based on a pre-test and two post-tests and follow-up interviews administered to geography classes at matriculation level was used to collect numerical data about changes in understanding after the teaching of a people-environment topic. Students showed a moderate level of environmental understanding to begin with. Results showed that, irrespective of academic ability, those taught with an enquiry approach did better than those who were taught didactically in the short term but not in the long term. The reasons for this trend are discussed in terms of student ability and teaching conditions in schools. To increase the effectiveness of enquiry teaching, improvements in teacher education and training, curriculum revision, funding and research support and changes in examination questions are called for.
[Copyright of International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10382040108667445 ]

Sex education is not treated as an important subject in the school curriculum of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Education Department issued in 1986 and 1997, respectively, two guidelines on sex education for schools' reference. The 1997 Guidelines cover a broader conceptual framework relating to different aspects of human sexuality and also include teaching strategies. Surveys by the Education Department in the early 1990s showed that there were a lot of problems in promoting sex education in schools. To see whether there had been any progress in sex education in the post-handover period to China from the United Kingdom, a working group of the Hong Kong Institute of Education carried out a study on this issue in the year 1999-2000. Data were collected through a survey and a small number of structured interviews. The study reveals that secondary schools are now generally more positive in promoting sex education and more interactive teaching methods are used. However, there are still a lot of constraints in the promotion of sex education in schools in Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Sex Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681810500171458]