This paper reports on an exploration into difficulties in junior secondary science lessons taught through English in the largely Cantonese-speaking context of Hong Kong. The study was carried out by an educational linguist and a science education specialist working in collaboration, and identified difficulties through student questionnaires, interviews with teachers, and classroom observation. Understandings of genre based in systemic functional linguistics were used in conjunction with knowledge of the science curriculum to investigate these difficulties. Extracts from lessons and teaching materials on energy conversion are discussed, with additional reference to interviews and questionnaires. Analysis revealed the influence of teaching materials on coherence between curricular objectives and teacher discourse. In particular, complex description detracted from explanations, affecting student understanding of the lesson. Copyright ©2024 Elsevier.

While increasing the equitable participation in computer science (CS) education at schools, most existing studies focus on the acquisition of computational skills and measurements of cognitive skills as the learning outcome. The potential benefits of developing psychosocial attributes in the process of computational learning are of less concern, particularly for the underprivileged youth with Special Educational Needs (SEN) and from low-income family. To improve the inequitable learning in school, the "Project C program" has been developed to integrate computational participation and mentoring scheme through social-cognitive approach for underprivileged youth. The aim of this research is to investigate the psychosocial impact of the program, and examine the interrelation between hope, sense of community, and perceived social support in computational learning. The Project C program was piloted in a special school in Hong Kong under the category of "Schools for Children with Moderate Intellectual Disability," targeting 8th grade students (n = 51) with SEN (i.e., mild autism) living in low-income residential districts, and a self-reported pre/post questionnaire was administered to measure the psychosocial changes before and after the intervention. The findings reveal a statistically significant change in hope, sense of community, and perceived social support through the program, and the relation between sense of community and hope was fully mediated by the perceived social support. Based on the findings, theoretical and practical implications of social-cognitive approach to computational learning are discussed. Copyright © 2023 Springer.

Drawing on Lemke's (1990) “thematic patterns” theory, this research proposes a “Concept + Language Mapping” (CLM) approach and tried it out in an English Medium Instruction (EMI) biology classroom in Hong Kong. Lessons were observed and samples of student work were collected during the intervention with student/teacher interviews conducted afterwards. A quasi-experimental design was also adopted to estimate the impact of the CLM approach. The analysis indicated that CLM facilitated the development of both content and language knowledge.

In this study, we assessed the general marine environmental knowledge and attitudes of university students from eight public universities in Hong Kong. The Ocean Literacy Framework and revised New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) were used as tools for questionnaire development. Data were collected via in-person and online surveys. An in-person survey was conducted at the university canteen from 16 May to 24 May 2017, and an online survey was conducted via email from 1 May to 31 May 2017. A structured questionnaire was provided to interested students from different levels of study and majors. Data obtained from these surveys were summarized based on participants’ correct answers in the general knowledge section and five-point Likert scaling for attitude statements. Results show that Hong Kong university students possess moderate marine environmental knowledge and pro-environmental attitudes. Knowledge scores significantly correlate with demographic variables, such as major of study, gender, institution, and parents’ education. Students’ pro-environmental attitudes are associated with different factors, including participation in various marine recreational activities, taking marine-related courses, and attachment to conservative marine initiatives. The study results have implications regarding the advancement of marine environmental knowledge and the pro-environmental attitudes of university students, such as mapping a well-structured pathway for disseminating marine environmental knowledge, curricular involvement, and the development of an integrated web resource. Copyright © 2023 by the authors.

Current academic research bodies on STEM education focus on five perspectives of student ability enhancement, teacher training, curriculum integration, pedagogy and curricular implementation in intra-national/cross-national comparative studies. Noteworthy, there has been no comprehensive policy analysis of STEM education in secondary school curricula in Hong Kong. For STEM is not formally documented into school curricula and students mostly join inter-school and international STEM project competitions. International literature reveals that conceptions of STEM education are still fuzzy. In this paper, a 2 X 3 matrix is utilized to evaluate the extent of implementing STEM education in mainstream secondary schools in Hong Kong, and to envisage contextual difficulties and obstacles against STEM education. This paper then leads conceptual discussions on integrated approaches, draw policy implications and recommend further research agendas. Copyright © 2022 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.

This paper reports the results of a quasi-experimental study that evaluated the effectiveness of collaborative mind mapping in three Hong Kong primary schools. More than 200 grade 4 students, divided into three pedagogical groups, participated in a variety of science learning activities with the aid of a mind map and/or collaborative group work. The results of diagnostic tests reveal the synergy of peer collaboration and mind mapping to be more effective than either collaboration or mind mapping alone in enhancing students' scientific achievement. Analysis of the students' science discourse and follow-up interviews indicates that collaborative mind mapping fosters learning motivation and facilitates the joint construction of conceptual knowledge in science. Recommendations are made for the integrative use of graphic organisers and group work, and implications for future research on science teaching in Hong Kong and elsewhere are further discussed. Copyright © 2022 Springer.

The aim of this research study is to investigate and evaluate the effectiveness of innovative use of an open-source digital technology, Arduino, which is an information and communications technology (ICT) tool for practical work in physics in the senior secondary curriculum. The study also seeks to ascertain factors affecting the effective use of the technology in students’ learning of physics with a view to informing possible extensive use of the Arduino technology in senior secondary science education and its application to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. The importance of harnessing ICT in education is well recognized in the education arena. Educators have viewed ICT as an enabling tool for higher levels of analysis to take place in science teaching and learning. However, the use of technology does not guarantee meaningful and effective learning. What is crucial is the transformative, appropriate use of ICT to enhance students’ learning. In this regard, proper integration of ICT into the curriculum, or even across disciplines in the context of STEM education, for meaningful study is an area of concern. While ICT integration has been advocated for many years in the senior secondary physics curriculum in Hong Kong, there remains a gap in its holistic integration into the curriculum. This study demonstrates successful development of seven Arduino-based experiments and an entire set of courseware that covers a wide range of experiments in the topic of “mechanics” in the senior secondary physics curriculum. Design-based research (DBR) methodology is adopted in the development, which is characterized by rounds of systematic iteration, feedback gathering, and modification. The final outputs are encouraging for performing the series of experiments in “mechanics”. The study bridges the gap between theoretical framework and practical application in an authentic setting, and it informs of the suitability of DBR in developing ICT tools for

The COVID-19 pandemic measures substantially affected the Hong Kong education systems over two years. The learning and teaching of Biology in local secondary schools have been greatly hindered by the occasional suspension of face-to-face teaching in Hong Kong. The school-based assessment (SBA) of the major public examination, Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE), have been even canceled for the past years. To respond to the constraints imposed by COVID-19, there was an accelerated popularization of electronic learning (e-learning) in the educational sector. Other than conducting online real-time lectures, some new educational modules unitizing Virtual Reality (VR) have been developed by educational organizations to substitute the authentic learning in the field trip. The presentation would report a case study of such a VR-based module which has been tested in the tertiary institution for training the pre-service Biology teachers. The students agreed in the survey that the learning experience through VR-based module is not comparable to authentic field experience, and yet it could be a contingent measure in responding to the COVID-19 situation and a potential resource for self-directed learning in the future. Copyright © 2022 BIOTA & AABE.

本研究旨在探討透過行為改變技術來提升中度弱智兒童科技學習的成效層面。從國際性及東亞區研究範疇中，很少特殊教育研究涉獵這個學習層面。因此，本研究以前、後測法來比較 12 位中一至中五年級中度弱智學生在非科技教學組、科技教學組及行為改變技術融合於科技教學組中的學習差異，藉此嘉惠有特殊教育需要的學生。This paper attempts to explore into possible enhancement of using behavior modification (BM) techniques for moderately retarded schooling children’s learning through information technology (IT). Facing the under-researched special education topic in international and East Asian research literature, the paper compares the pre- and post-test learning outcomes of 12 moderately retarded students at Grade 7-12 levels in the three groups of not using IT, using IT and using IT in BM settings through quantitative research methods, for the sake of those students with special educational needs. Copyright © 2005 香港中文大學香港教育研究所 ; 華南師範大學教育技術研究所.

In English-medium instruction (EMI), English-as-a-second-language students will learn all/some subjects through English. Although there are a considerable number of studies which explore classroom interaction in Hong Kong (HK) secondary EMI schools, few studies have investigated EMI lessons which involve South Asian ethnic minorised students. These students share different linguistic and cultural backgrounds and they may not share a common first language with the teacher and other classmates. This study conducts a multimodal conversation analysis of science and mathematics lessons at a HK EMI secondary school, triangulated with interview data, in order to explore how the EMI teacher mobilises various resources to make discipline-specific knowledge accessible and cater for the different needs of all students in the classroom. This study argues that the process of enacting inclusive practices is a process of translanguaging which requires the EMI teacher to mobilise various available multilingual and semiotic resources and draw on what students know collectively for transcending cultural boundaries from the students' everyday culture to cultures of school science and mathematics. Copyright ©2021 Springer.