Internationalisation has been actively pursued by Hong Kong's universities. Recent years have witnessed quantitative growth in non-local students. To ensure a qualitative success of internationalisation, it is crucial that universities cater for students with diverse academic backgrounds. This research explored challenges to academic adaptation. Focus group interviews were conducted with 124 local, mainland Chinese and international students at four Hong Kong universities. Findings revealed variation in academic adaptation challenges. First, adaptation to an English-medium-of-instruction was a concern for local and mainland Chinese students, while international students noted that limited English proficiency among other students undermined classroom discussions and led to tensions in group projects. Second, local students faced challenges in adapting to a wider range of assessment modes and academic writing, while mainland Chinese and international students reported how teacher-student relations and teaching approaches differed from prior educational experiences. Implications for the delivery of higher education amid internationalisation are discussed.
[Copyright © 2017 European Higher Education Society.]

This study investigates how a class of university music students who engaged in a 'lived' experience of informal learning adopted methods and strategies to complete a self-learning 'aural copying' performance assignment in a musicianship class in Hong Kong. Data were collected from observations of the performances and the students' written reflections. The findings showed that they used the methods of intensive listening, using technology, and collaborative learning, as well as the strategies of putting their knowledge of music theory into practice, substitution of instruments, and learning a new instrument in order to emulate the sounds of various instruments. They found this an interesting task that gave them opportunities to improve their musicianship, and they became more sensitive to different voice parts.
[Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 ]

Purpose Political parties in Hong Kong are eager to recruit university students and internship programs are a major recruitment channel for them. However, studies on the influences of political internship programs on university students are few and have mainly been conducted in Western democracies. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the roles of political party internship programs in encouraging university and community college students to join political parties in Hong Kong, a semi-democratic autonomous region of China. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on the insights gained from semi-structured interviews with a small sample of former party interns. Findings This paper found that party internship programs can play three major roles in encouraging students at higher education institutions to join a political party. They are: exposing students to the recruitment efforts of the party, helping students who have no political aspirations to generate a desire to join, and providing an opportunity for those already considering joining to ascertain if the party is really suitable for them. Originality/value This paper shows that political internships in semi-democratic regimes like Hong Kong can play similar roles as those in Western democracies to stimulate some university students to pursue a career in politics and help those already considering a political career to ascertain their goals. This paper also shows that these stimulating and confirming effects could also apply to the application for party membership.
[© Emerald Publishing Limited 2017]

Drawing on in-depth interview data from 31 mainland Chinese (MLC) students in a Hong Kong university, this article conceptualises MLC and Hong Kong higher education as two dissonant but interrelated subfields of the Chinese higher education field. The article argues that these MLC students' habitus, one that possesses rich economic, social and cultural capital, prompts a strong sense of entitlement to anticipated privileges. However, this sense of entitlement is disrupted by the differential capital valuations across these fields. There is thus notable habitus-field disjuncture, which, exacerbated by the hysteresis effect, gives rise to a sense of disappointment and ambivalence. This article demonstrates how the Hong Kong education credential, which these students initially set out to pursue as a form of capital, can become a disadvantage at multiple levels; the article illustrates that capital valuation and conversion in a transborder context is not a straightforward, but rather a complicated and sometimes contradictory, process.
[© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group]

This study explores the interrelationships between self-concept, motivation and academic and social experience among students from self-financing higher education institutions in Hong Kong. Although prior studies have investigated different aspects of self that drive various types of motivation in students' academic and social experience, most of them are related to publicly funded universities only. This study aims to extend our current understanding to the context of self-financing higher education, which is an alternative to students whose academic results are not good enough to secure tertiary placements at publicly funded universities. Using qualitative approach and the technique of friendship pair, 26 students from 12 self-financing higher education institutions in Hong Kong were recruited for semi-structured interviews. Data analysis revealed that participants constructed two dimensions of the self: the personal (i.e. the actual academic self, the possible academic self, the spiritual self and the extended self) and relational (i.e. the familial self and the social self) dimensions in the light of their university experience. The findings provide a better understanding of the contemporary university experience in relation to self and motivation among students studying at self-financing higher education institutions.
[Asia Pacific Education Review is a copyright of Springer, 2017]

While a class gap remains in obtaining a degree despite an expansion of higher education, a variety of second chances have become available. How class matters in receiving parental assistance for seeking a second chance is of increasing importance to understanding educational inequality in an altered context of higher education, but it is under-researched. This article seeks to fill this gap by referring to a qualitative study of 85 community-college students in Hong Kong for illustration. First interviews with respondents recruited from a community college were conducted between the year 2006 and 2009 where they discussed how they desired a second chance option by studying an associate degree in community college. Encouragement and emotional support to seek this new, costly, and risky second chance was provided by parents of most respondents. And yet, as a deficit approach would have us believe, middle-class respondents received more relevant information and academic advice with financial support from their parents than working-class respondents. In spite of that fact, it seems to remain whether the middle class are indeed better able than the working class to get transferred to university through the transfer of an associate degree in Hong Kong. This illustration suggests that the availability of a second chance does not immediately imply that the middle and the working classes are equally capable of taking advantage of it to rectify their previous educational failure. This article will be concluded by discussing the implications of this study for educational inequality.
[Higher Education is a copyright of Springer, 2017]

One of the key aims of formative assessment in higher education is to enable students to become self-regulated learners (Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006). Based on Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick's (2006) framework, this exploratory study investigates which formative assessment practices proposed by them were used by one college EFL writing teacher to facilitate learner self-regulation in a Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) setting (i.e. Hong Kong) and student perceptions of these practices in relation to self-regulation. Five formative assessment practices were found to be implemented by the teacher to support learner self-regulation. The students seemed to be more positive about teacher-and-student-directed practices than student-directed ones. Suggestions have been provided to maximize the potential of these practices in facilitating learner self-regulation.

升讀副學士課程的學生當中，不少對教育工作是抱有熱誠與希望的。香港推行融合教育已有 15 年之久，平等機會委員會在其《融合教育制度下殘疾學生的平等學習機會研究》鄭重地指出準教師於大學畢業前的特殊教育需要(SEN)的培訓是香港融合教育走向成功的一個路向。本研究以問卷形式，收集了副學士在接受培訓課前並於完成培訓及實習後對支援有特殊學習需要的學生在學習、教學支援、學生行為管理、與他人合作和行政支援的看法，以作為副學士課程的學生經歷了接觸及教育有特殊學習需要的學生之後感受的對比。數據分析顯示副學士對融合生的觀感正面，完成培訓及實習後於「教學支援」和「學生行為管理」方面有顯著的正增長。他們勇於接受 SEN 的個別差異，態度正確。需要指出的是若以男性與女性的副學士作對比時，女性對培訓的增長較男性大。此外，是次研究留意到副學士學生相當有耐性，可塑性極高。因此，若她/他們欲投身教育界，副學士畢業生會是擔任教學助理 (Teaching Assistant, TA) 的合適人選。
[Copyright © 2016 特殊教育學會有限公司.]

The rapid development of mobile technologies in recent years has induced more and more students and lecturers to use powerful mobile devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets, laptop computers, etc.) and learning software/apps to assist their learning and teaching, which has greatly enhanced the effectiveness of subject learning in higher education. It is, therefore, very important to investigate how mobile devices and learning software/apps facilitate teaching and subject learning in tertiary institutions, and how mobile learning can be promoted effectively in higher education. In this study, we will analyse and discuss the data collected from two surveys and follow up interviews among lecturersand students in the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) about their current practices regarding the use of mobile technologies in their teaching and subject learning respectively. In the findings, we will identify effective mobile learning resources and good practices of mobile-assisted teaching and subject learning. We will also discuss the establishment of a Mobile Learning Community (MLC) to promote mobile learning and mobile-assisted teaching among students and lecturers in higher education. Some key factors of establishing a successful mobile learning community will be discussed. It is hoped that this study will shed some light on how good practices of mobile learning and mobile assisted teaching can be promoted effectively in tertiary institutions.