Synchronous online teaching through video-conferencing software (VCS) has become a common mode of instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. This mode brings unique challenges for teachers that require specific professional digital competences. One such challenge is conducting formative assessment. Through the use of in-depth interviews with nine Hong Kong university teachers who had taught synchronously online for one semester, this exploratory study explored the challenges of conducting formative assessment during synchronous online lessons and the strategies teachers deploy to conduct formative assessment. The findings indicate that the key difficulties include gathering information on students’ needs, checking students’ understanding, giving individual feedback, and building relationships with students. To address these challenges, the teachers suggested four pedagogical strategies: (1) Combine synchronous with asynchronous approaches; (2) Utilise breakout rooms; (3) Utilise poll functions of the VCS and combine it with other online platforms; and (4) Provide time before or after lessons for informal conversations. The findings suggest that teachers need to develop specific pedagogical strategies to conduct formative assessment. This provides an initial conceptualisation of one important dimension of Professional Digital Competence, teaching using digital technologies, and one aspect of that dimension, how teachers use digital tools and strategies to conduct formative assessment. Copyright © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Emergency online education has been adopted worldwide due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Prior research regarding online learning predominantly focused on the perception of parents, teachers, and students in tertiary education, while younger children’s perspectives have rarely been examined. This study investigated how family, school, and individual factors would be associated with primary school students’ satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and preference in online learning during COVID-19. A convenient sample of 781 Hong Kong students completed an anonymous online survey from June to October 2020. Logistic regression was conducted for 13 potential factors. Results indicated that only 57% of students were satisfied with their schools’ online learning arrangement and 49.6% regarded the online learning as an effective learning mode. Only 12.8% of students preferred online learning, while 67.2% of students preferred in-person schooling. Multiple analyses suggested that teacher–student interaction during online classes was positively associated with students’ satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and preferences in online learning. Compared to grades 1–2 students, grades 3–6 students perceived more effectiveness and would prefer online learning. Happier schools were more likely to deliver satisfying and effective online education. Students who reported less happiness at school would prefer online learning, and students who reported less happiness at home would be less satisfied with online learning and reflected lower effectiveness. Teachers are encouraged to deliver more meaningful interactions to students and offer extra support to younger children during online classes. Primary schools and parents are encouraged to create a healthy and pleasant learning environment for children. The government may consider building up happy schools in the long run. The study findings are instrumental for policymakers, institutions, educators, and researchers in

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to offer direct tests of the effectiveness of renaming vocational education and training (VET) in enhancing the image and popularity of the subject. Although many proponents of renaming argue that the word “vocational” is associated with lower levels of skills and knowledge and should therefore be supplemented by better recognised words, empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of this strategy is scant. Design/methodology/approach: This study exploits a rare policy change in Hong Kong, where VET was renamed as vocational and professional education and training (VPET) and conducted an original survey experiment of 1,004 parents in the city to test if the new name would improve respondents' perceptions of the subject. Findings: The findings reveal a complex picture regarding the effects of renaming. Although renaming does not seem to improve the overall popularity of vocational education, it may widen the support base for vocational education by diluting its class character. Specifically, while attitudes toward VET are significantly and negatively correlated with family income, no such association is found in regard to VPET. Originality/value: This paper offers the first direct and comprehensive test of the effectiveness of renaming vocational education – a popular policy suggestion in many countries. Its findings complicate conventional expectations and contribute to the study of educational preferences in advanced economies. Copyright © 2022 Emerald Publishing Limited.

The study investigates the development of virtual classroom in secondary schools in Hong Kong from in-service teacher perspectives and focuses on teachers' concerns towards the virtual classroom and their preferences on designing virtual classroom. Quantitative survey data came from 352 secondary school teachers and qualitative interview data was collected from 8 of the surveyed teachers. The results indicated that major concerns of most studied teachers were lower stages of typical non-user concerns profile, implying that virtual classroom was still at the infancy stage of development in some secondary schools of Hong Kong during the research period. A minority of teachers, who exhibited high competency in information literacy and were competent users of virtual classroom, had their concerns profiles shifted to higher stages of concern. An analysis of teachers' paradigm for the use of virtual classroom revealed that most teachers still stuck to the traditional teacher-centered pedagogy and employed mainly receptive and directive architecture in teaching without using virtual classroom in guided discovery and exploratory approaches. Strategic plan and staff development program for the success of implementation of virtual classroom are finally discussed in this paper. Copyright © 2005 The authors. All rights reserved.

The growing complexity of doing a PhD necessarily demands candidates to robustly exercise their agency in navigating the doctoral journey. However, the conceptualisation of how students use their agency across multiple facets of their studies has yet to receive due scholarly attention. Drawing on the subject-centred sociocultural view on agency, this study analysed life story interviews conducted with 16 doctoral students in Hong Kong. Findings show that participants’ agency was manifested both in socially and collectively organised enterprises (proactive engagement in a wide array of developmental opportunities, responsiveness to situational research problems, contestation against unsupportive institutional cultures) and as individual-level strategic perspectives and actions (self-management of everyday emotions, imaginative construction of post-graduation prospects). Concurrently, the results shed light on the inextricable and complex linkages between the enactment of agency and the personal, relational, institutional, and broader higher education conditions delimiting students’ lived experiences of candidature. Implications for educational practices and future research beneficial to develop doctoral agency are discussed. Copyright © 2022 Informa UK Limited.

This qualitative study investigated the impact of online education on the learning and peer interaction experiences of students from eight universities in Hong Kong over the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It employed an expansive and spatial notion of translanguaging to explore the process by which students drew on the affordance of virtual communication environments to communicate, study and develop new identities. The findings suggested (1) the students strategically mobilised manifold multimodal resources to constitute their communicative repertoires that facilitated smooth intercultural communication and academic success; (2) such communicative competence centralized the mediating effect of digital semiotic systems and thus might empower the students with disadvantaged language skills; and (3) through translanguaging acts the students developed a virtually translocal identity with an expanded experience of internationalisation of higher education whereby the increasingly interwoven physical and virtual spaces bring extended social networks, learning resources, and career opportunities. The implications of the findings were discussed. Copyright © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The mixed-method study reported here was designed to evaluate a strengths-based career intervention program for secondary school students with mild special educational needs (SEN). A sample of 32 SEN students (19 boys: 13 girls) from 5 inclusive schools in Hong Kong were recruited to a treatment group. An additional 32 SEN students (19 boys: 13 girls) were selected to form the control group matched for age, gender and parents’ education level. The special needs exhibited by both groups were in areas of literacy and numeracy, attention deficits, and social-emotional problems, but did not include severe or complex disabilities. Participants in both groups responded to pre- and post-intervention questionnaires covering career development self-efficacy, personal and social development self-efficacy, and meaning in life. As a follow-up, two teachers and three social workers providing support to SEN students, and the 32 participants were interviewed several months after the intervention. Interviews also took place with teachers, social workers and students to evaluate the perceived effects of the intervention. Findings indicated significant interactions between Time 1 and Time 2, and between groups (control vs. treatment) in personal goal-setting, career goal-setting, and the presence of meaning in life. Additionally, several themes were identified from the interviews suggesting that the intervention did have positive effects on SEN students’ career, personal and social development self-efficacy, and acquisition of meaning in life. Copyright © 2022 The International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) and Springer Nature B.V.

The quality of teachers is an essential element of a strong vocational education and training (VET) system. VET performs many important functions in society, including responding to a constantly changing labour market as a result of rapid changes to the economy and society. Recent changes in VET have focused specifically on meeting the needs of the world of work in order to support countries’ development agendas. These improvements, which target the efficiency and effectiveness of VET systems, also need to be reflected in VET teacher training. This has become a priority for governments and other stakeholders, however, there are numerous challenges related to different aspects of VET teacher training, including curriculum design. This chapter provides an overview of VET teacher training in Mainland China (with some reference to Hong Kong SAR), and highlights the approaches/models used for teacher training, as well as the challenges encountered in improving the effectiveness of teacher training in response to the various development trends in VET. The overview is based on a review of literature, curriculum and policy documents. Copyright © 2022 selection and editorial matter, John Chi-Kin Lee and Timo Ehmke; individual chapters, the contributors.

本文為探究中港澳臺幼兒教育之多元文化圖像，透過課綱的文本與論述分析，理解其與社會脈絡之連結，且輔以批判視角，嘗試探究課綱中可見與不可見，與4地多元文化教育發展的各自論述。本文分析的文本為中國、香港、澳門與臺灣4地由官方正式公布，且目前使用中的學前課綱。研究結果發現，整體圖像共通性部分，呼應全球化的多元文化教育精神，宣稱不因各種文化背景產生學習偏見與落差的均等追求；其次，在社會領域呈現與多元文化相關的具體目標，豐富幼兒多元文化經驗，同時強調幼兒的自我認同；最後搭配統整與結合生活經驗的教學方法來實踐多元文化教育。在個別圖像獨特性部分，中國側重國族文化與國家團結之認同；香港強調多元族群背景共融的需求與具體作法；澳門凸顯在地與中國連結的文化論述；臺灣重視多元文化各類議題與性別平等意識。 Copyright ©2021 國家教育研究院.