This chapter explores the influence of technology on the pedagogical strategies instructors employ to enhance student outcomes at an English-medium instruction (EMI) institution in Hong Kong. As an integral component of course delivery, technology presents both opportunities and challenges in EMI settings. This interpretive qualitative study involves nine students and three instructors, who volunteered to participate in semi-structured interviews. The findings indicate that technology is pivotal in bridging and enhancing learning outcomes. The students strongly preferred instructors who incorporated technology into their teaching, adopted student-centred approaches that facilitated language-learning autonomy, and offered clear guidance on digital tools. The study also identifies the need for professional development focused on using technology purposefully to support instructors’ learning goals. The findings offer valuable insights and recommendations for students, instructors, and institutions aiming to integrate technology into EMI environments effectively. Copyright © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Xuyan Qiu and Rui Yuan; individual chapters, the contributors.

Along with the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the educational systems in the world faced challenges due to the school lockdown and the change from face-to-face to online learning mode to adapt to the emergency health issue. The present chapter reviews the digital divide issues during the pandemic of COVID-19 over three years (2020-2022) in Hong Kong. Regarding the three levels of the digital divide (access, usage, and outcome), this chapter collected and analyzed secondary sources of literature to understand the extent to which digital resources were unevenly distributed among students from different backgrounds in Hong Kong and how various social sectors provided timely support to address these needs. The result showed the good practice of Hong Kong, in terms of the efforts made by multiple parties to provide prompt support to fill the gap of the digital access divide. Nevertheless, the gap in digital capability across individual students may have enduring impacts on their academic study and personal growth, which have not been sufficiently addressed. Copyright © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Huixuan Xu; individual chapters, the contributors.

The present study aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire assessing parents' beliefs about, and attitudes toward, supporting young children's English as a second/foreign language development -- Parent English Language Belief and Attitude Questionnaire (PELBA-Q). The PELBA-Q was piloted with 173 parents of kindergarten-aged children and further validated with a sample of 278 parents in Hong Kong. A series of exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to explore the factor structure and evaluate model fit, which resulted in a 20-item questionnaire with four factors (i.e. Perceived Importance of the Home Environment; Perceived Child's English Language Ability and Self-Efficacy; Normative Beliefs; and Control Beliefs). The convergent and divergent validity of the PELBA-Q were also established by examining the relationship between the PELBA-Q and parents' home practices and family characteristics. The PELBA-Q had satisfactory model fit indices and demonstrated good reliability and validity. The findings showed that the PELBA-Q could potentially be used as a sound assessment tool for measuring parents' beliefs and attitudes on young children's English as a second/foreign language development and could contribute to greater understanding of how parental beliefs and attitudes may influence home practices and children's English language learning outcomes. Copyright ©2024 Routledge.

With technology integration efforts expanding to early childhood education globally, assessing preschool teachers’ technological competence beliefs is imperative. However, most existing tools measuring teachers’ information and communication technology (ICT) competence beliefs focused on primary through secondary grades. This study examined the factorial validity, reliability, and measurement invariance of the Basic ICT Competence Beliefs (BICB) questionnaire among 209 preschool teachers in Hong Kong and the Philippines. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the original nine-factor structure over plausible alternative models. All factors showed good reliability (α = 0.83 to 0.91) and theoretically meaningful factor intercorrelations. Multigroup CFA results supported the measurement invariance of the scale. Specifically, the results demonstrated the configural, metric, scalar, and strict invariance across cultural groups. Findings provide further validity for the BICB as a psychometrically sound instrument for assessing preschool teachers’ ICT competence beliefs within and across contexts. The BICB can help identify teacher strengths and needs, guide professional development, and evaluate technology integration efforts in early childhood education in Asia. Copyright ©2024 Springer.

This study aims to develop and validate a comprehensive scale for assessing students’ sustainability competence in education for sustainable development (ESD). Existing ESD assessment tools have faced criticism for lacking rigorous design and validation. Following a three-phase procedure proposed by Boateng et al., the study utilized qualitative and quantitative methods to develop and validate the scale. The scale was administered to 708 students participating in an extracurricular eTournament on Sustainable Development Goals organized by a Hong Kong university. The validation process involved expert panels, cognitive interviews, factor analyses, and assessments of internal consistency. Using Wiek et al.'s five-competence framework, 16 ESD learning outcomes were generated, forming the basis for the scale items. The survey included a mini-scenario introduction to enable students’ evaluation of sustainability practices, even with limited experience. Data analysis revealed a four-factor structure that could be both distinguished and integrated under a single upper-level factor. The scale is developed with the aim to better measuring tertiary students’ sustainability competence via a holistic and integrated approach, which completes the constructive alignment of current ESD, particularly in extracurricular settings. Copyright ©2024 Taylor & Francis.

This study investigates the student‐ and school‐level predictors of reading performance across five top‐performing countries in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2021. Utilising a multilevel analysis, the research examines the influence of cognitive development, socio‐cultural contexts and educational environments on reading achievement. The results reveal significant variances both between and within schools, highlighting the critical role of educational policies and practices in shaping student outcomes. Finland, known for its equity‐focused education system, demonstrates low between‐school variance, while Russia shows high between‐school variance owing to socio‐economic disparities. Key student‐level predictors include gender, digital self‐efficacy and a sense of school belonging, varying in significance across countries. At the school level, factors such as the number of computers, principal experience and academic emphasis significantly influence reading scores. The full model, incorporating both student‐ and school‐level predictors, explains a substantial portion of the variance in reading scores, especially in Hong Kong and Russia. These findings underscore the importance of a comprehensive approach to educational research, considering both individual and institutional factors. Policy implications suggest targeted interventions for countries with high between‐school variances and support for inclusive learning environments where within‐school variances are significant. Future research should explore the impact of non‐cognitive factors and emerging educational practices on reading performance to develop more effective educational strategies globally. Copyright ©2024 Wiley.

Prior research in Applied Linguistics has explored how teachers mobilise diverse resources in order to make connections between the students' out-of-school knowledge and experiences and the abstract content knowledge. Nevertheless, how teachers can transcend the boundaries of disciplinary knowledge by incorporating relevant content knowledge from other academic subjects to facilitate students' learning of new content knowledge is a topic that is under-researched in the field. Adopting translanguaging as an analytical perspective, this study examines how the creation of a translanguaging space can afford opportunities for an English-Medium-Instruction (EMI) teacher to connect content-related knowledge for supporting students' learning of new historical knowledge in EMI Western History classrooms. The data is based on a larger linguistic ethnographic project in a Hong Kong EMI secondary Western History classroom. Multimodal Conversation Analysis is used to analyse the classroom interaction data. The classroom interaction data is triangulated with the video-stimulated-recall-interviews that are analysed with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. This paper argues that a translanguaging classroom space can be ­created for activating students' prior learnt subject knowledge for ­supporting students' learning of new academic knowledge. Such a translanguaging space provides opportunities for classroom participants to not only engage in fluid language practices, but also encourages the teacher and students to bring in multiple epistemologies that help students understand new academic knowledge in a new classroom interactional context. Copyright ©2024 Routledge.

This article discusses how a new APRS service-learning model was implemented in a new service-learning project in the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) orthopedics curriculums at three Hong Kong institutions. The APRS model adopting flipped learning approach consists of four cyclic stages, including Application, Practice, Reflection and Self-regulated learning. Qualitative and quantitative findings in this study reveal that TCM students gained confidence in applying discipline knowledge/skills and improved in various areas, including cross-cultural competence, communication, problem-solving and collaboration. Drawing evidence from this study, possible factors contributing to positive impacts on student learning in the APRS model are the "strong connectivity" (including clear alignment with programme, profession, institutional missions and traditional Chinese philosophy "xiushen"), "reinforced motivation" (student autonomy and buy in) and "structured organisation" (strong network among participating parties and use of a centralised electronic platform). The APRS service-learning model is a culture-based approach helping students reconnect Confucian "xiushen" to the discipline knowledge and the real-life application in the Hong Kong context. This model may also be applicable to other Asian contexts where the Confucian culture prevails. Copyright ©2024 University of Louisiana System.

This study explored Chinese students' motivations for selecting a cross‐border university in China's Guangdong‐Hong Kong‐Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) and how they perceive their undergraduate experiences. The GBA was developed as an international economic cluster in China. Despite the vitality of the GBA's international education sector, few studies have focused on individual students' perspectives on cross‐border higher education choices and experiences. We interviewed twenty students and two academics in charge of university admissions about their opinions and reflections concerning a GBA cross‐border university. Students' university choices were linked to different admission profiles, parental influences, institutional features and interactions between students and the institutions. Our study has significant implications for leaders and policymakers in higher education seeking to attract talented university students, improve enrolment and promote students' learning experiences in cross‐border higher education institutions. Copyright ©2024 Wiley.

In bilingual education programmes, teachers, particularly content subject teachers, play an important role in helping students master content knowledge and the target language simultaneously. In this regard, teachers' language awareness, which will affect their pedagogical practices, is crucial. Collaboration between content subject and language teachers is argued to be effective in enhancing teachers' language awareness and strategies of integrating content and language teaching. This study explored this by investigating 12 secondary schools in Hong Kong which implemented partial or full English Medium Instruction, with a specific focus on how cross-curricular collaboration was implemented, and whether this may have promoted teachers' language awareness and practices. With questionnaires, interviews, classroom observations and artefacts, the study observed that teachers were generally aware of the difficulties students encountered when learning content subjects through English, and content subject teachers tended to recognise their roles of incorporating language teaching into content lessons. Such self-reported language awareness was corroborated by the various strategies integrating content and language teaching in the observed ­lessons. These findings demonstrate a cyclic relationship between cross-curricular collaboration and teachers' language awareness -- teachers' language awareness is essential to make cross-curricular collaboration happen, and it is further reinforced after teachers collaborate with each other. Copyright ©2024 Routledge.