The study aimed to uncover the conceptions of creativity among early childhood teachers in Hong Kong. The sample comprised 563 early childhood teachers. Factor analysis supported the multidimensional hypothesis of teachers' conceptions of creativity. Five dimensions were found: novelty, product, problem solving, cognitive processes and personal attributes. Early childhood teachers in Hong Kong ascribed high importance to these dimensions as defining characteristics of creativity, with a person's cognitive processes and personal attributes being ascribed relatively more important while product as relatively less importance. In particular, imagination, multiple perspectives and curiosity were perceived as very important concepts of creativity. Teachers with different teaching backgrounds shared very similar conceptions of creativity. Significant results were found with regard to product only. The findings have implications for early childhood teacher education programmes and professional development in Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2012.735645]

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]

This study compared a gratitude intervention approach with a coping intervention approach in promoting subjective well-being in a sample of 78 Hong Kong Chinese school teachers. Forty teachers were randomly assigned to the eight-week count-your-blessings condition and 38 teachers to the eight-week count-your-misfortunes condition. Increases in life satisfaction were observed in the post-intervention assessment for both approaches. However, statistically significant changes were observed on life satisfaction and the experience of negative and gratitude-related emotions only for the gratitude intervention approach, suggesting the relative effectiveness of the count-your-blessings exercise. Implications of the findings on developing intervention approaches that encompass counting positive and negative events for promoting subjective well-being are discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2013.785046]

This study investigated whether gratitude and the 'good-enough mindset' added to the contribution of perfectionism in predicting life satisfaction in 245 Chinese highly achieving students in Hong Kong. Participants completed self-report questionnaires that included scales on life satisfaction, positive and negative perfectionism (perfectionistic striving and perfectionistic concerns), gratitude and the good-enough mindset. Measures of gratitude and the good-enough mindset explained a substantial amount of unique variance in the prediction of life satisfaction in addition to the contribution of age and measures on positive and negative perfectionism. Implications of the findings for integrating gratitude and the good-enough mindset in the development of effective positive interventions to cope with negative perfectionism in youth and adolescents are discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2012.685451]

This study investigated the effectiveness of a gratitude intervention programme in promoting life satisfaction and reducing burnout symptoms. Sixty-three Hong Kong Chinese school teachers aged 22-54 participated in an eight-week count-your-blessings study that used a pre-test/post-test design. Increases in life satisfaction and the sense of personal accomplishment and decreases in emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation were observed in the post-intervention assessment. Significant changes were observed on life satisfaction and emotional exhaustion as a result of intervention interacting with the meaningful-life orientation to happiness. These changes favoured teachers who put higher value on the meaningful-life orientation, suggesting that the promotion of a meaningful-life orientation could be an important element in the repertoire of gratitude intervention efforts. Implications of the findings on developing gratitude intervention programmes that focus on human positives and the promotion of gratitude and the meaningful-life orientation in combating teacher burnout are discussed.
[Copyright of Roeper Review is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2011.608525]

This study investigated the relevance of filial piety and the three components of self-determination, namely, competence, autonomy and relatedness, on academic motivation among Hong Kong Chinese secondary school students. A total of 461 students completed the questionnaire which consisted of five scales assessing attitudes towards filial piety, perceived scholastic competence, perceived autonomous support from parents, relatedness with parents and academic motivation. By using structural equation modelling, a predictive model of academic motivation, with filial piety, competence, autonomy, relatedness, age and gender as antecedents, was developed. All variables explained the prediction of academic motivation, with competence acted as the strongest effect, followed by relatedness and filial piety. The findings highlight the important contribution of the three self-determination theory (SDT) components and the value of filial piety for Chinese adolescents' academic motivation. The implications of the findings for future research and educational practice were discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2011.559309 ]

This study examines the association between teachers' preferred interpersonal behaviour in teaching and their thinking styles. A sample of 131 secondary teachers from Hong Kong (n = 94) and Macau (n = 37) participated in a survey to measure their preferred interpersonal behaviour by the questionnaire for teacher interaction (QTI) and their thinking styles by the thinking style inventory-revised (TSI-R). Results indicated that teachers in both regions preferred to employ student-centred interpersonal behaviour (leadership, helpful and friendly, understanding and freedom teaching styles) in the classroom teaching. Teachers' thinking styles were related to their preferred interpersonal teaching styles. Specific relationships were found between the types of thinking styles and their preferred teacher interpersonal behaviour among Hong Kong and Macau teachers.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2010.548116]

This study evaluated students' affective learning in an introductory computing course that was taught in Hong Kong once in a lecture format and twice in a rich interactive multimedia online format to 414 college students in all. A simplified experience sampling method was used to assess affective learning at the midterm and end of each course in terms of intrinsic engagement (positive affect, perceived challenges, perceived skills in course activities), extrinsic engagement (performance expectations, performance goals, performance self-efficacy), and negative affect in course activities. Controlling for students' computing background and pre-enrolment academic ability, multivariate analysis of covariance indicated that, compared to lectures, e-learning modules fostered more intrinsic engagement, comparable extrinsic engagement, and more negative affect. Findings suggest directions for developing online courses that optimise both cognitive learning and affective learning.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410601061413]

The primary aim of the present study was to investigate whether variations exist in child and parent attributions in predicting child academic achievement within a culture and between cultures. Participants were 158 students and their parents from three different primary schools in Hong Kong, including one British international school consisting of students who are predominantly from a British background and two Chinese public schools each with a distinct SES profile. This paper extends the findings of previous research whereby Western parents attribute their child's success to ability and Chinese parents attribute their child's success to effort. Additionally, this study found that the Chinese children's attributions differed according to the SES catchments of their schools; children from higher SES were inclined to attribute success to effort. The results are discussed in terms of parent and child attributions' prediction of child's academic achievement within Hong Kong's family demographic.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410500390772]