本研究透過文獻探究福祿貝爾（以下簡稱福氏）的遊戲教育理論，將其和香港的遊戲學習課程的政策和實踐做比較、討論，其中，從探究福氏的教育理念和遊戲教育論，參考其他福氏研究專家的詮釋資料，整理出關於福氏遊戲教育的原貌，再將福氏遊戲教育和香港的《幼稚園教育課程指引》，以及國際期刊中有關香港遊戲學習課程的實證研究結果，進行批判性分析和比較，藉此反思當代香港幼兒教育的遊戲中學習的理念，並深入探討福氏遊戲教育對現代香港幼兒教育倡導的遊戲中學習的啟示。本研究獲得以下主要結果：一、香港的遊戲學習課程原以福氏遊戲教育理論為基礎，但福氏遊戲教育中強調的幼兒自動自發遊戲的自主性，受到課程時間限制和各種社會文化因素，在香港幼兒教育課程的實踐上有一定的難度；二、福氏遊戲教育的核心要素——照料遊戲，雖類似香港幼兒教育課程政策提倡的教師多元化角色，但福氏的照料遊戲亦給了教師如何運用言語等去引導幼兒學習一個更明確的方向。本研究結果提供香港或其他提倡遊戲中學習的國家一個更明確的方向，幼兒教育課程政策上應提供更清楚指引達到幼兒自主性和教師的照料遊戲工作，實務上的意涵則是對實踐遊戲中學習的方向更清楚。 Copyright © 2022 中華民國比較教育學會.

This article reports the findings of a multi-site qualitative study of 31 Chinese homeschooling families in Taipei and Hong Kong. Homeschooling, a significant source of inspiration for school innovation, has been growing around the globe in recent years, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the challenges facing mainstream schools. The findings reveal that the families under study chose to homeschool their children mainly because they were dissatisfied with mainstream schools in the Chinese context, which, as they described, were not sufficiently child-centric. Notably, their homeschooling practices were highly diversified and hybridised, including a variety of organisational methods, actors, and materials. Based on lessons learned from homeschooling, the findings indicate the need for mainstream schools to reimagine their relations with families and the outside world in terms of pedagogic time, space, relations, and resources to better respond to every student’s unique needs as well as the challenges ahead in the post-pandemic world. Copyright © 2023 Educational Review.

Research has shown that the triarchic model of grit scale (TMGS)—a measure that assesses tendency to show perseverance, passion, and adaptability for long-term goals—has been valid in different contexts such as the Philippines, Japan, Poland, mainland China, and the United States. However, there is limited research on the validity of this scale in Hong Kong. Against this backdrop, this research examined the structural, convergent, and criterion-related of the TMGS among secondary school students in Hong Kong. A total of 298 secondary school students in Hong Kong participated in this study. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to evaluate the structural validity of the three-factor model of grit. Correlational analysis was conducted between grit's dimensions and school satisfaction to assess the criterion-related validity of this scale. CFA showed that the scores from the three-factor model of grit underpinned by perseverance of effort, consistency of interests, and adaptability to situations were valid and reliable. There was mixed evidence on the convergent validity of the scale based on the subscales’ composite reliability (CR) estimates. Whereas perseverance of effort and adaptability to situations were positively correlated to school satisfaction, consistency of interests was negatively linked to the said criterion variable. This research demonstrates the potential applicability of the TMGS in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Psychology in the Schools Published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

The linguistic backgrounds of English learners in Hong Kong are highly complex and diverse. There are local Hong Kong learners who speak Cantonese as their native language, new immigrants and students from different dialectal regions in mainland China and non-Chinese learners from the Philippines and Pakistan, among others. To optimise the effectiveness of English pronunciation teaching with such a diverse student body, it is of paramount importance to provide Hong Kong teachers with a spoken learner corpus. This paper introduces a self-developed spoken learner corpus and shows how it can be used in the design of pedagogic applications. The establishment of a learner corpus can help teachers understand the recurrent pronunciation difficulties encountered by learners of particular language backgrounds so that they can customise their teaching materials. To promote pronunciation teaching using this corpus, a teacher training programme was designed and conducted. Pre-service and in-service teachers participated in three face-to-face and real-time streaming workshop sessions, two online sessions, and a lesson plan design competition. Most of the participants appreciated the authenticity of the learner speech data, the diversity of speaker language backgrounds and the effectiveness of using the corpus as a teaching tool. Nonetheless, some suggested that the diversity of reading materials for eliciting speech data could be improved and that more dialect subgroups could be included in the corpus. Copyright © 2023 UKM Press, National University of Malaysia (UKM).

Background: Since the outbreak of COVID-19, universities in Hong Kong have implemented online and hybrid teaching modes, making computer-assisted language learning (CALL) a primary way for English learning. Research on English learning motivation and self-regulation has seldom considered learners' emotions (satisfaction and preparedness) and the synchronic online courses in a CALL context. Objectives: This study analyses the relationship between Hong Kong university students' motivation and self-regulation by considering their emotions in computer-assisted synchronic online English courses. Methods: 311 Hong Kong university students were invited to complete two questionnaires that investigated students' motivation and self-regulation in computer-assisted online English courses. SPSS 26 was employed for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to extract factors and exclude unsuitable items, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to verify the results of EFA. One-way ANOVA was conducted to detect the impact of personal emotion on motivation and self-regulation. AMOS 26 was adopted to construct a structural equation model (SEM) to explore the relationship between motivation and self-regulation in the CALL context. Results and Conclusions: The results show that satisfaction and preparedness positively correlate with online English learning motivation and self-regulation. Instrumentality-attitude significantly predicts all factors of self-regulation via SEM and goal setting significantly predicts all factors of motivation. With feasible English learning goals, Hong Kong university students are more proactive in learning English online where they actively interact with teachers and peers. Implications: Based on the L2 self-system (Dörnyei, The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition, 2005) and self-determination theory (Barnard et al., Internet and Higher Education, 2009, 12, 1–6), this study clarifies the relationship

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19, which has presented great challenges to pedagogy, has catalyzed the transition of teaching and learning to the online mode. Uncovering the key factors that facilitate positive learning outcomes in online learning environments has thus gathered importance. To bring these factors to light, this study aims to understand and model the effect of perceived online connectedness on the relationship between student motivation and university learning outcomes. Based on 470 questionnaire responses collected by students from nine universities in Hong Kong and Macao, findings from structural equation modelling, showed students’ online connectedness partially mediated the relationship between online learning motivation and university learning outcomes. These results suggest that the learner’s motivation derives not only from the perceived relevance of the learning subject, but also from the learner’s attributes such as confidence, satisfaction, and attention during online learning. Moreover, students’ perceived connectedness, which considers the comfort, community, facilitation, interaction, and collaboration of students in an online context, plays a key role in students’ positive learning outcomes. Pedagogical implications for teachers, educators and students and university policy implications are discussed. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

Higher education professional development trends increasingly focus on areas of quality improvement, quality assurance and optimal technology delivery models to achieve academic excellence. World-class universities rely on their faculty professional development centres for an array of professional development programmes to support teaching, research and student learning. This article examines faculty development centres at eight world-class universities in Australia, China, the United Kingdom and the United States: Australian National University, London School of Economics and Political Science, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Hong Kong, University of Melbourne, University of Oxford, University of Pennsylvania and University of Pittsburgh. Findings from this study include the structural characteristics of each centre as well as a summary of best practices in terms of programme development and resource management. We provide suggestions and recommendations to assist higher education administrators interested in establishing or strengthening professional development programmes at their own institutions. Copyright © 2015 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. All rights reserved.

Teachers’ well-being and self-efficacy are two important factors linked to quality education. Recent research examining their bidirectionality has revealed inconsistent findings, while those examining the relationships among pre-service and in-service teachers are scarce. This study investigates the reciprocal relationships between teachers’ well-being and self-efficacy in a sample of Hong Kong early childhood education teachers. Participants were 155 pre-service (n = 77) and in-service (n = 78) teachers (Mage = 23.97, SD = 4.46, female = 92.9%). Participants reported their teachers’ well-being (PERMA model including positive emotion, engagement, relationship, meaning, and accomplishment) and teachers’ self-efficacy at two-time points. The results from the cross-lagged panel model revealed that teachers’ self-efficacy at baseline significantly predicted all aspects of prospective well-being except for engagement. In contrast, none of the teachers’ well-being components significantly predicted later teachers’ self-efficacy, except for accomplishment. The associations between teachers’ self-efficacy and well-being were invariant across pre-service and in-service teachers. The results underscored the importance of teachers’ self-efficacy in facilitating teachers’ well-being. The findings also highlight the utility of intervention efforts targeting teachers’ self-efficacy and well-being, especially in promoting teachers’ accomplishment, at an early stage of their careers. Copyright © 2023 De La Salle University.

This paper explored teacher professional development (TPD) for online and blended learning (OBL) via microlearning in the higher education English language teaching context in Hong Kong in 2021 and 2022. OBL requires teachers to integrate technology. This study drew on quantitative survey data (N = 67) and interviews (N = 12) that took place after the participants were exposed to microlearning. The findings illuminated that microlearning was perceived as flexible and stress-free and allowed teachers to focus on relevant and immediate tasks using bite-sized learning segments to achieve digital growth. Such activities created favourable conditions to equip them with the skills necessary to teach effectively in the context of the “new normal”. Moreover, the study shed light on how previous TPD activities were often considered too general to improve teachers’ digital competence. It concluded with a call for more research on microlearning and TPD for OBL to help teachers gain pedagogical, theoretical and practical knowledge to enhance their teaching. Copyright © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to education systems around the world, resulting in a ‘new normal’ for school music education in which teaching and learning can no longer rely only on conventional classroom practices. Concerns have also been raised over music teachers’ digital competencies, given the perceived importance of the use of technology within the new educational landscape. This article presents the results of a study that examined the challenges and experiences associated with the digital competencies of music teachers during the pandemic period. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with full-time music teachers (N = 18), all of whom taught music as a subject at mainstream primary or secondary schools in Hong Kong. The findings revealed challenges and upskilling of music teachers during the lockdown period, including the technological constraints imposed by the school and the online environment, how they made use of technology to teach music online, and the different ways they developed their digital competencies. Alongside with the catalyst effect of the pandemic that stimulated their upskilling, curriculum changes in teacher training programmes are necessary to better prepare music teachers for the digital transformation of music education and future challenges under the post-pandemic ‘new normal’ situation. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s).