The article discusses the professionalization and vocationalization of continuing education in Hong Kong, China as a result of educational reforms. Topics include public and private sector involvement in professional and vocational education (PVE), the relation between education and occupational or job training, and the emphasis on learning outcomes assessment.
[Copyright of International Journal of Lifelong Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02601370.2013.774066]

Aiming at providing quality teaching and learning in higher education, the pendulum of education has recently swung back to Outcome-Based Learning (OBL), in which higher education institutes need to assess the extent to which they have attained those learning outcomes planned for their students. However, OBL assessment is still at its developmental stage with amorphous nature. For this, the present paper proposes a mixed-method approach and consolidates the assessment by providing different methods, namely expert-panel assessment, qualitative longitudinal study, institute-level survey, and course-level evaluation, as means of obtaining more precise results. Integrating findings from different methods is also briefly discussed.
[Copyright of Revista de Cercetare si Interventie Sociala. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://rcis.ro/en.html]

How students understand, feel about and respond to assessment might contribute significantly to learning behaviour and academic achievement. This paper reviews studies that have used a relatively new self-reported survey questionnaire (Students' Conceptions of Assessment - SCoA) about student perceptions and understandings of assessment. Confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modelling results have shown, consistent with self-regulation theory, that the SCoA inventory has meaningful relations with academic performance among New Zealand high school students. Further, German, Hong Kong, American, and New Zealand studies have shown that the SCoA has relations to motivational constructs (e. g. effort, learning strategies, interest, self-efficacy and anxiety) that are also consistent with self-regulation. The SCoA inventory extends our understanding of how student conceptions of assessment are an integral part of self-regulation and provide a warrant for use in research studies investigating test-taker responses to assessment practices and innovations at both university and high school levels.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2011.599836]

The main purpose of this study was to develop a Rasch Measurement Physical Fitness Scale (RMPFS) based on physical fitness indicators routinely used in Hong Kong primary schools. A total of 9,439 records of students' performances on physical fitness indicators, retrieved from the database of a Hong Kong primary school, were used to develop the Rasch scale. Following a series of iterative Rasch analyses that adopted the 'data should fit the model' approach, four physical fitness indicators (such as 6-min run, 9-min run, 1-min sit-ups, and dominant handgrip) were successfully calibrated to form the RMPFS. The RMPFS and its scale indicators showed fit to the Rasch model sufficient for the intended purposes of measuring the overall fitness of children. The overall physical fitness measure reflects children's fitness on three key core components of physical fitness - cardio-respiratory fitness, muscular endurance, and muscular strength. Advantages of the RMPFS are discussed, and recommendations for future research follow. The findings of this study provide a better knowledge basis for interpreting children's physical fitness assessment results.
[Copyright of Measurement in Physical Education & Exercise Science is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher’s website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1091367X.2011.590772]

This research had two objectives. The first was to determine the reliability and validity of the multifaceted assessment of creativity (MAC) for evaluating Hong Kong university students' conceptions of creativity. The second was to establish if the theory–practice and gender gaps discovered among mainland Chinese university students would be replicated. The theoretical foundation for the MAC is the investment theory of creativity. Participants were 156 university students in Hong Kong. Results showed that Hong Kong university students' conceptions of creativity fit well with the six resources for creativity measured by the MAC: intelligence, knowledge, intellectual style, personality, motivation and environment. The present data not only confirmed the theory–practice and gender discrepancies previously found among mainland Chinese university students, but also revealed an additional gap –a theory–practice gap found only in participants' evaluation of female school students. Implications are discussed for research and for the psychology of teaching and learning.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2013.812615]