The study explores secondary students' decision making about socio-scientific issues (SSIs) related to biological conservation, from cross-cultural, cross-age and cross-gender perspectives. It has been widely recognized that many SSIs have profound repercussions on global environmental sustainability that transcend cultural boundaries. Research on SSIs has been focused on multi-perspective reasoning, the evaluation of evidence, value judgement, and the formulation of the criteria for decision-making, but not on the possible roles of culture, gender, and age-related developmental factors as mediators of students' decision making. This study was to fill this gap. It adopted a comparative perspective and used mixed methods including student worksheets, class discussion records and focus groups. A total of 97 HK students, with 55 aged 11-13 and 42 aged 15-17, and 54 UK students, with 41 aged 11-13 and 13 aged 15-17 were involved in decision making about shark hunting within their own classes, and in cross-cultural exchange between HK and UK classes. The aim was to study gender, cultural and age-related differences in students' decision-making about shark hunting, and the impact of cultural exchanges through watching videotaped presentations from another locality. Preliminary findings showed that while nearly all the students in both localities agreed to protect sharks to different extents, there were differences across age, gender and culture in various aspects of their decisions including their justifications. For instance, there was statistically significant difference in the number of concerns on which the justifications of HK and UK junior students were based upon; UK senior students targeted at a wider range of stakeholders in their final decisions than their HK counterparts; and far more senior students in both localities resorted to education as a means to protect sharks than their junior counterparts. More junior students in both localities thought they needed

Purpose: This paper aims at review the rationale of STEM education in business subjects prospective. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education is a new trend in the Asia-Pacific region in the recent years, such as Singapore and Japan. Through studying others countries experience, it discuss the missing link of STEM education in Hong Kong. Methodology: First of all, it describes the purpose of STEM education and recent development in Hong Kong secondary school by reviewing HKSAR STEM education report. Second, there are two STEM education sample schools from western country and Singapore. It discusses the purpose of promoting entrepreneurial STEM education in these countries. Finally, compare with others countries, it try to identify the missing link between business education and STEM education by reviewing Hong Kong's entrepreneurial education. Result: Although entrepreneurial education is mature and supported by professional parties in Hong Kong, there is a gap for business subjects to enhance the effectiveness of STEM education by integrating entrepreneurial education into STEM education, especially in secondary level. Conclusion and discussion: It is necessary to provide authentic learning for students from private and public sector commitment. Cross subject collaboration for professional development should also developed at secondary school. It aims at not only accommodating the purpose of Hong Kong STEM education, but also enhance teachers' collaboration and students' cross subject integration competence in problem solving with various stakeholders' support.

Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA) diving is always regarded as a risky activity to be conducted as an extra-curricular activity in the schools of Hong Kong. However, it provides a golden opportunity for students to experience the marine nature and serves as an excellent pedagogical tool of field based learning on the environmental education. The presentation will report a case study of an international school in Hong Kong on how they utilize SCUBA diving as a tool to enhance their students' knowledge about ocean and to foster the pro-environmental attitude. The teachers of the school have developed a tailor-made curriculum using problem-based approach, articulating with the discussion of current local environmental issues on marine conservation. The students have been forming a team to join the annual global citizen-scientist programme, Reef Check, to contribute their effort in revealing the health of coral community system in Hong Kong. A mixed research method, which includes semi-structured interviews of teachers, current students and alumni, and the self-administered questionnaire for them, was adopted in the study to evaluate the ocean literacy and pro-environmental attitude of the students and the effectiveness of the programme. The difficulties faced by both the teachers and the students throughout the implementation period of the programme will be reported. The opportunity and the challenge to run such a programme in the local school will be discussed, which would provide significant insights to other local schools conducting similar field-based learning and teaching activities.

Despite STEM education is highly advocated in Hong Kong schools, teachers and students are still lack of the relevant personal experience and practical training, especially in an informal learning environment. This paper reports on a new event of STEM Olympiad 2016 organized by The Education University of Hong Kong and supported by the Education Bureau of the HKSAR Government and other institutions, aiming at providing senior secondary school students with informal learning opportunities to deepen their understanding of STEM and reflecting on their interest towards pursuing further study in STEM subjects and career; and creating an atmosphere conducive to the teaching of STEM in secondary schools and heighten teachers' and students' awareness of the importance of STEM education. Students participating in the STEM Olympiad completed a “Knowledge Challenge” on both individual and team bases, and competed in the “Innovations in Practice Challenge” to solve the local wastewater treatment problems. Each team had to design, assemble and test a treatment system prototype to meet the design criteria and to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in STEM without prior training and preparation. Before the final challenge, a mass expert lecture was delivered by an experienced engineer to enrich students' knowledge in the wastewater treatment and its underlying scientific principles. A series of 11 parallel education forum and workshops were also held to raise participants' awareness of the importance of STEM education as attended by hundreds of teachers and students. The competition yielded a total of 36 gold, silver and bronze medals awarded to the competition winners. We conducted student and teacher questionnaire survey and interviews after the competition to collect data on their perceptions and opinions of the event. As expected, the feedback is generally positive in many aspects. In particular, the students widened their vision in STEM and the teachers also obtained a holistic

The purposes of this study were to examine the Hong Kong 5th and 6th graders' performance on the number sense three-tier test, the differences between 5th and 6th graders, and possible misconceptions. The number sense three-tier test included a content-tier which assesses content knowledge of number sense; a reason-tier, which assesses a reason selected for the first-tier response; and the confidence-tier, which assesses how confident the students are in their answers to the first two-tiers. A total of 125 fifth graders and 942 sixth graders from Hong Kong joined the test. A quantitative method was used to analyze the data and the data was collected through the on-line test. Data showed that the correct percentage (confidence index) on the first two-tiers (content-tier and reason-tier) for fifth and sixth graders are 56.6% (4.49) and 54.0% (4.27), respectively. The fifth and sixth graders all performed the best on “Being able to recognize the number size” and the worst on “Being able to judge the reasonableness of a computational result”. Results showed that part of students performed poor on number sense but with extreme high confidence indicating that they have significant misconceptions and some students may lack number sense. The finding of this study also confirmed that a number sense three-tier test can be used to mitigate the weakness of a two-tier test. Educational implications of the findings will be discussed.

This paper presents a mixed-methods study on preservice student teachers' perceived professional competence in the context of a Five-year BEd Programme in Hong Kong. Two rounds of data collection took place. 282 participated in the first survey and 346 participated in the second survey, with 15 student teachers joining semi-structured interview. The quantitative findings showed a significant increase in two competence factors, namely (1) Competence in Classroom Teaching; and (2) Pedagogical and Educational Knowledge after the second block of ITE fieldwork. The qualitative findings showed the characteristics of growing perceived professional competence and the constituting factors, like student teachers' learning from experience in the first block of ITE fieldwork, support from school teachers and feedback from university supervisors. A few student teachers reported negative change in perceived competence in challenging class settings and school contexts. Challenges and constraints encountered by these student teachers were identified to gain a deeper understanding of student teachers' experience. This study affirms the value of ITE fieldwork in contributing to growth in student teachers' professional competence. The deeper understanding of changes in student teachers' self-assessed professional competence provides insights on the relationship between professional competence and teaching contexts. This deeper understanding generates implications for ITE programmes and schools (sites of ITE fieldwork) to provide conditions to enhance student teachers' growth in professional competence. Equally important, student teachers need to be prepared to cope with challenging teaching contexts, including unfamiliar school contexts, schools / teachers with different teaching philosophies, and classes with diverse learning needs.

The major characteristic of religious education is to equip students with a set of values with reference to its religious doctrines. Vermeer (2010) pointed out that religious education may influence students with some basic democratic values like equality, tolerance and non-discrimination. Various Western literature highlights the influence of religion on students' civic and social values development (see Grundel and Maliepaard, 2012; Pike, 2008; Vermeer, 2010; Gates 2006). However, the study of this topic in Chinese contexts is quite limited (Zhai & Woodberry, 2011; Cheung et al., 2016). Hong Kong and Taiwan are part of East Asia with similar set of values (Cho & Kim, 2013; Karsten et al., 2002). Religious bodies like Buddhist organizations and Christian churches play a significant role in both Hong Kong and Taiwan education development (Cheung et al., 2016; Zhai & Woodberry, 2011). They operate various secondary and primary schools. Religious education is part of their curriculum and makes these schools different from secular schools. This paper aims to explore the influence of religion on secondary students' civic and social values development in both societies. By making use of the focus group interview, this study collected data from schools with four different types of religious background, including Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Atheism (no religious affiliation) and making comparison between Hong Kong and Taiwanese students. The findings provide a better understanding about the influence of religion on Chinese students' citizenship development in both societies but the results differ from those found in Western studies. The implications of these results for theory building and policy are discussed.

This paper seeks to identify the factors supporting or hindering students' development of reflective thinking or reflection through working on e-portfolios at a higher education institution in Hong Kong. Six students were selected to participate in the study from one of the groups of GECC (General Education Consolidation Course) based on their scores in first reflective essay. Two in-depth interviews with each of the selected six students, totaling 12 in-depth interviews were carried out. The focus of the first in-depth interview was to understand what supported or constrained their reflective thinking from their perspectives. The second in-depth interview was carried out for some clarification purpose from the first interview and also to have more detailed information. The first interview was conducted after students had received scores for their first reflective essay. The second interview was conducted after students had finished their course work and submitted their e-portfolios to the supervisor. In addition, students' individual consultations with their supervisor were observed. Furthermore, all six students' e-portfolios were analyzed and each student's two reflective essays totaling twelve reflective essays were critically analyzed. The study found supporting factors such as support or training from the university; support from supervisor; peer feedback, to name a few. On the other hand the study also found hindering factors such as technical skills; limitation of the platform of e-portfolios; language skills, to name a few. The paper provides a detailed account of how all different factors interacted with students' development of reflective thinking.

All students, including those with disabilities, are entitled to participate in outdoor learning. However, previous research has found students with visual impairment in mainstream Hong Kong schools often encounter difficulties (and even exclusion) in learning activities conducted outdoors. The research reported here aimed to explore the reactions of students with visual impairment who participate in outdoor learning, and then to recommend solutions for overcoming any obstacles that they identify. A phenomenological inquiry approach was applied to examine data through the live experiences of the students. Their perceptions of the experiences offered by their schools were also collected. The key findings on the positive side were: First, most of the mainstream schools do provide outdoor learning opportunities to all students, including those with visual impairment. Second, some students with visual impairment love to participate in outdoor learning because they can acquire more real-life knowledge; and they can also socialize with different people. Third, students with visual impairment perceive that they can play a more active role (e.g. as a leader) in outdoor activities to help them learn effectively. Findings on the less positive side were: First, public's noninviting attitudes were perceived to be a difficulty the students encountered. Second, students with visual impairment tend to need more time to deal with other school work, and often reluctantly choose to withdraw from optional outdoor learning opportunities. Third, there are insufficient provisions made for their outdoor learning and community service. Implications of the findings for school policies and practices are discussed.

Supporting students with special education needs (SEN) in classroom is a main duty for teaching assistant (TA). According to the Code of Practice of Education, students with SEN in Hong Kong were encouraged to enroll in mainstream school. Therefore, TAs are inevitable to work with students with SEN. This research was an investigation on TAs' self-efficacy which was a factor that would affect students' achievements and classroom management. There were two purposes in this research. First, level of TAs' self-efficacy would be explored. Second, the effect of training course to accommodate students with SEN on TA's selfefficacy would be studied and further suggestions on training course reformation would be made. Quantitative method was adopted in this study. 463 TAs had participated in this study, and their self-efficacy had been tested in 5 domains: teaching support, learning support, behavior management, cooperation and administrative support. Data indicated that TAs were most confident in cooperation and least confident in teaching support and behaviour management. Training to support students with special education needs (SEN) were found to contribute to TAs' self-efficacy in all 5 domains. However, no differences were found among different training hours because the training course cannot meet the needs of TA. This paper suggested that future TA training course should put more emphasis on teaching support and behavior management.