Universities around the world are encouraging teachers to provide more constructive feedback to support student learning, but do teachers know how to distinguish constructive feedback? What pedagogical practice is considered as feedback and what is not? For example, is a rubric a type of feedback? To date, very limited research has answered these questions from university teachers' perspectives and the current study aims to address this gap. In this study, ten teacher training workshops were conducted in a university in Hong Kong, with an intention to enhance teachers' competence in assessment and feedback. During the workshops, we first adopted Poll Everywhere to survey whether teachers (N = 248) recognise six types of common pedagogical practices as feedback, and subsequently used this as a base to discuss with teachers the reasons behind their responses. Findings reveal teachers' varied perceptions of these practices as feedback, which may be related to their varied understandings of feedback purposes. The paper calls for an explicit acknowledgement of the multiple purposes of feedback, and concludes with implications for teacher feedback literacy in higher education. Copyright ©2021 Routledge.

Against the backdrop of the worldwide prevalence and importance of internationalisation in higher education, the mixed-methods study examined the relationships between tertiary-level learners' on-campus intercultural activity participation (e.g. intercultural talks and workshops), seven aspects of whole-person development (civic responsibility, cultural engagement, intellectual capacity, peer relationship, community care, leadership, and self-appreciation), and academic performance. A questionnaire was distributed to 518 participants studying at two universities in Hong Kong. No positive relationship was found between participation and academic achievement. However, participation was positively correlated with all aspects of whole-person development. Community care and cultural engagement had the strongest correlations with participation. Following an explanatory sequential design, 18 of these participants were invited for a follow-up interview to expound on the findings based on their experiences, observations and understanding of their peers. The article ends with a discussion of the findings and implications for intercultural learning and teaching in higher education. Copyright ©2021 Routledge.

In Hong Kong, after-school activities have long been used to foster friendships and to allow students to pursue their interests in an informal setting. This case study reports on a three-phase action research process in which information technology teachers delivered after-school activities focused on artificial intelligence during the COVID-19 transition to remote learning. Using semi-structured interviews, a motivational questionnaire, and lesson observations, this study describes how extracurricular activities were delivered online using social networking sites and how students perceived the new experience. Our results suggest that, in order to deploy meaningful activities via social media, teachers need to build collaborative environments that facilitate social engagement among students. These findings have implications for new practices in social media and other blended technologies, and can help students strike a healthy balance between their academic and non-academic life during this challenging period. Copyright © 2021 Online Learning.

This presentation reports the initial findings of a study that examines university governance in relation to the institutional and cultural settings of the higher education systems of three Chinese societies – Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. The research employs a mixed-method strategy that consists of semi-structured interviews and a small-scale survey. The qualitative part of the research sought to explain the coordination mechanism in university governance through an analysis of data generated from 57 interviews. Evidences collected from the interviews revealed the interactions and relationships amongst the various actors on governance matters, and constructed a taxonomy of institutional balance of power in the higher education systems of the three Chinese societies. The qualitative research also generated 12 situations of governance matters in relation to cultural hybridity, informed by corresponding theoretical components. The small-scale survey, in which 261 manager-academics from the three societies rated the 12 scenarios of cultural hybridity in terms of their realism and acceptableness, then captured cultural differences in handling governance matters in the three higher education systems. This quantitative research reveals that Macau has greater acceptance of these cultural scenarios in comparison with Hong Kong and Taiwan. However, the figures show that most of these cultural situations are generally considered unacceptable, though their likelihood varies in the three places. These findings offers insights into the relationships between institutional forms and cultural features of higher education governance in the three societies. Copyright © 2020 CHER-Hong Kong.

This paper proposes a novel remote-controlled laboratory (RCL) system, which was developed by using innovative ideas and methods for applying technology-enhanced learning to secondary school science education (grade 7-9 or ages 12-14) through three iterative cycles of design-based research. This Internet-based RCL system enables learners to control and observe the server side of the laboratory equipment and to perform real-time remote scientific investigations at distant places.In this study, three iterative cycle trials and refinements were performed. First, a newly developed RCL system involving four remote experiments was initially tested by 64 undergraduate students who studied science education and web technology and were enrolled in teacher training courses. Then, a refined RCL system involving eight remote experiments were then evaluated by 32 secondary school students from a local public school as a second iterative cycle (selected electricity, plants, light and sound topics). After the refined RCL system was further refined, it was again evaluated by 35 secondary school students from another local public school as a third iterative cycle. The evaluation of these three iterative cycles was performed using a mixed research method that included achievement tests (for the second and third iterative cycles only), questionnaire survey, open-ended questions and interviews specifically developed to collect data on student understanding, perception, and implementation of the use of the RCL system.The results of the achievement tests revealed that the secondary students more comprehensively understood the related science topics. In addition, the survey results indicated that the participants believed that the RCL system and methods for conducting the experiments were appropriate and educational. Nevertheless, negative comments and suggestions for improvement were identified. Accordingly, the researcher refined the RCL system and its design principles (integration with

This thesis explores multiple relationships among school missions, developmental programs, and the spiritual well-being of students and teachers at 5 Hong Kong secondary schools in which only 3 schools namely an Anglican school (School A), a nonreligious school (School B), and a Catholic school (School E) were selected for further case study according to their quantitative results and school management approval.A mixed methods approach was applied to examine these relationships. A quantitative instrument, the Spiritual Health and Life Orientation Measure, was adopted to assess the spiritual well-being of 2,125 students and 96 teachers. Statistical results revealed that students from School E showed the most highest level of spiritual well-being, followed by School A and then School B, with significant differences observed among the three schools. Teachers’ spiritual well-being were also ranked in the same order of School E, School A and School B but the differences were not significant.A qualitative investigation involved a textual analysis of school documents including the guidelines of school sponsoring bodies and the schools’ mission statements (first-order documents), as well as their school development plans and annual plans (second-order documents). Individual interviews with principals and teachers (n = 21), focus group interviews with senior students (n = 31), and school visits for ethos observations were conducted to identify daily practices and real interactions indicating the influence of developmental programs, teachers’ values, and the schools’ mission statements on the nurturing of the students’ spiritual well-being.The content of developmental programs was found to be closely related to the content of the schools’ mission statements and the values of the schools’ sponsoring bodies. Positive relationships were observed between the number of developmental programs at the schools and the students’ level of spiritual well-being. For all 3 schools, both the