This study investigates the transition from kindergarten to primary school through the experiences of the teachers, parents and children involved. Emphasis is given to the transitional activities participated in by the stakeholders and the effectiveness of these activities. These experiences of children's transition to school will inform further research into the design of effective transition programmes in the local context. The means of investigation in this study include questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and observations. The results show that the teachers and parents generally believed that the children performed quite well academically, although the primary school teachers reported that they were average in discipline. The findings from both the questionnaires and the interviews show that most of the respondents agreed that strong connections between kindergarten, primary school and parents could facilitate a smoother transition to school. However, in reality, both kindergarten and primary school teachers showed ignorance of each other's teaching practices and curriculum.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430802586130]

This study describes the validation and interpretation of the Parents' Attributions and Perception Questionnaire (PAPQ) using confirmatory factor analysis and Rasch modelling to report both the construct validity and category structure of the scales in the questionnaire. The PAPQ was developed to reflect the proposal that parents mediate the relationship between their children's social and psychological development, and their academic achievement, within the context of Hong Kong. The questionnaire consists of four subscales that reflect different interactions between parents and their children in relation to their children's academic-related activities, including a Parental Attributions Scale, Parental Beliefs of Working Memory Scale, Parental Home and School Involvement Scale, and Parental Academic Expectations Scale. These subscales were supplemented by a fifth subscale that describes parents' socio-economic background. The PAPQ was administered to 215 parents from four schools in Hong Kong. Results showed that the four subscales of the PAPQ are valid and reliable unidimensional measures of constructs related to parental role in the academic achievement of their children, thereby enabling future research to directly test Vygotsky's hypothesis.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2010.496900]

This research attempts to explore the antecedents of teacher behavior in communicating with parents, and to develop and test a model of teacher-parent communication in the context of Hong Kong primary schools.
The investigation comprised four parts. The first part was the evolving of a conceptual framework in predicting teacher behavior in communicating with parents. The proposed framework made important reference to concepts in the theory of planned behavior, but adopted neither the majority of its constructs nor the second-order structure of attitude- belief. It was hypothesized that teacher behavior was mainly determined by teacher intention, and teacher intention was subsequently determined by four components of teacher beliefs: namely role beliefs, normative beliefs, efficacy beliefs and context beliefs. Relevant teacher beliefs were identified and incorporated into the four components.
The second part of the study (Study One) explored the feasibility of the proposed framework with a small sample. Instruments for measuring various teacher variables were developed. The proposed model was basically supported by path analysis. This initial study was encouraging and justified the use of a more powerful tool of structural equation modeling, which could test simultaneously the whole system of variables.
The third part of the study (Study Two - Part One) was the first section of the main study involving 1918 teachers from primary schools. It comprised the developing of a total of thirteen measurement models of teacher beliefs and intention to be used in the modified framework of study. Satisfactory goodness-of-fit indices were obtained for all resulting instruments.
The last part of the study (Study Two - Part Two) involved the developing and testing of the structural model for predicting teacher communication behavior. A model generation approach was adopted. Altogether, three paths and six correlations were added to the hypothesized initial model.

Academic stress is widely recognized as a prominent source of stress for children in Hong Kong. What can be done to enhance children's resilience to this type of stress? The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between academic stress, children's anxiety, and academic attainment in senior primary school children in Hong Kong. Specifically, the objective is to investigate the moderating and mediating mechanisms through which parental support and children's resourcefulness might modify stress outcomes. To better determine the relationship patterns of these variables, a cross-sectional quantitative research design was used. Proportional stratified sampling, cluster sampling and random sampling methods were employed in various phases to locate suitable informants. Nine primary schools and a total of 1,644 senior primary school students participated in the study.
Three academic stress domains were generated from the Academic Hassles Scale.These were "academic inefficacy and fear of failure", "expectations and demands from significant others" and "academic demands and overload". Domain analysis proved to be more sensitive to gender difference when compared with the global academic hassles measure. Girls were more disturbed by "academic inefficacy and fear of failure" and boys were more affected by "expectations and demands from significant others" and "academic demands and overload". Correlation of the domains with factors in the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale indicated that the manifestation of anxiety was different in these domains.
Time spent by parents communicating with their children, parental emotional, informational and instrumental supports and children's resourcefulness were beneficial to children's emotional and academic adjustment independent of the stressors. When the support was delivered in overprotective and authoritarian ways, adverse outcomes were the result. Interaction effects were found only in the domain "academic demands

Data for this study was collected from the Program for International Student Assessment in Hong Kong (HK-PISA), which was conducted in 2002. A total of 4405 fifteen-year-old students from 140 Hong Kong secondary schools completed the student assessment. A total of 4336 parents also completed the parent questionnaires. These questionnaires was used to provide information about family social capital and family background.
In conclusion, the results of this research support Coleman's thesis of social capital in the creation of human capital. It also underscores the importance of bridging social capital in student's learning. Finally, the given recommendations based on the results of this research may be useful for policy makers, educators and parents in assisting students to improve their learning and develop their potential fully.
The CFA results suggest that the applicability and validity of the indices related to the three types of capital created by OECD is fair, and therefore the local social context should be taken into consideration when modifying these indices for adoption in the research. The results of the HLM analysis demonstrate that most measures of family social capital are consistently associated with students' literacy. They also show that effects of the process attribute of social capital on student's achievement are stronger than that of the structural attribute. Among the social capital variables used at the individual-student level, students score higher if their parents communicate (both social and culturally) with them more and also if their parents expect their child to attend university. Among the social capital variables used at the school level, the school mean parental network has a stronger positive contextual effect on students' achievement. As for the variables of physical and cultural capital, only part of them has a significant effect on student's achievement, and the effect is weaker than that of family social capital.
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