The purpose of the study is to construct and validate a Chinese self-regulated learning (SRL)-based reading instruction questionnaire (CSRIQ) and to examine the relationship between Chinese reading instruction and Hong Kong students' reading development from the SRL perspective. A total of 339 Grade 10 students completed the initial CSRIQ in Study 1. Exploratory factor analysis and reliability analyses were used to assess the psychometric quality of the questionnaire, and the original CSRIQ subscales were then revised. Study 2 comprised 1,121 Grade 10 students. The factor structure of the revised CSRIQ was supported by the findings of confirmatory factor analysis. The findings of structural equation modelling indicated significant relations between SRL-based instruction and various reading-related variables. Among the four aspects of instruction, teacher support was the most positive factor facilitating Chinese students' reading development, whereas student autonomy seemed less favourable. Cultural and curricula factors affecting Chinese reading instruction in Hong Kong were discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Research & Evaluation is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13803611.2012.689730]

This paper reports on a study that explored how teachers interacted with groups of university students in learning the target form in a second language. Adopting a sociocultural approach, the data were based on microgenetic analysis of teacher and student discourse in a English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom at a university in Hong Kong, in which undergraduate students were given a rewriting task in teacher–student interaction. The analysis shows that scaffolding is supportive for language learning as appropriate assistance by both the teacher and peers at the right time with the proper focus can mediate learning. The teacher is reported to maintain student involvement in the task by trying to reinforce the comprehension of task demands, contextual meaning, and linguistic features in texts. The study addresses the teacher's and learners' indispensable roles in leading students to focus on the appropriate form and ensure correctness in linguistic production. The combination of appropriate expert and peer involvement in the discourse seems to provide the optimum form of interaction and, therefore, ensure the high quality of mediation in second language classroom.
[Copyright of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2011.626858]

Partial fraction decomposition is a useful technique often taught at senior secondary or undergraduate levels to handle integrations, inverse Laplace transforms or linear ordinary differential equations, etc. In recent years, an improved Heaviside's approach to partial fraction decomposition was introduced and developed by the author. An important feature of this approach is that there is no need to solve a system of linear equations or to use differentiations to find the unknown coefficients of the partial fractions. In order to study its potential application in mathematics education at the undergraduate level, a pilot study of tryout at the Hong Kong Institute of Education has been conducted. The data are collected via quizzes, questionnaires and face-to-face interviews. In this article, the results and implications will be discussed. In general, according to the responses and feedbacks from the instructors and students concerned, the improved Heaviside approach is suitable to be introduced at the undergraduate level, as an alternative to the method of undetermined coefficients described in common undergraduate mathematics textbooks.
[Copyright of International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology is the property of Taylor & Francis. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0020739X.2012.662292]