The educational opportunities that global learning offers have stimulated a great deal of interest and initiatives from educational institutions all over the world. However, these institutions face significant challenges in programme design and delivery. Among the challenges are the development of teaching, learning and assessment modalities that recognise different learning styles and preferences of students from diverse cultural groups. This paper explores instructional design principles from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Based on the design guidelines, the authors look at issues related to the design, implementation and evaluation of courses and learning programmes offered by educational institutions in Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite) at http://www.ascilite.org.au]

Exploring teachers' attitudes towards research is always interesting. With the Education and Manpower Bureau's policy of introducing the position of Primary School Master/Mistress (Curriculum Development) to local Hong Kong primary schools, to understand the beliefs these curriculum leaders hold onto research - as a means to help schools to reflect upon their strengths and to decide how best to bring about reform in curriculum becomes significant. A survey of 209 PSM(CD)s suggested although people in general favour research in their work, there still reservations. A five-factor model indicated that, on the one hand, the majority of the respondents perceived themselves having ability to do research, valued research for professional development and providing solutions to teaching and learning deficiencies, and found the action research course that they participated useful. On the other hand, they preferred courses focussed on improving their teaching competencies to an action research course. It was shown that while demonstrated research experience and qualification of higher degrees revealed no significant difference in research attitudes, these factors associated positively with their commitment to school, self-efficacy and an internal locus of control. The work contributes to the understanding of how PSM(CD)s feel towards supporting doing and facilitating research for curriculum development in schools.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]

The management of change has long been recognised to be a complex and challenging process. The literature has revealed few success stories and many examples of curriculum innovations being adopted half-heartedly or not at all. Set against the increasing world globalisation of which education is apart, the cultural aspects of innovations are being increasingly discussed in recent years. This paper focuses on the cultural dimensions of a major curriculum reform in Hong Kong, the Target-Oriented Curriculum (TOC) initiative. The main principles of TOC and its early implementation are discussed. A number of the main features of TOC are analysed with particular reference to their cultural appropriateness for the Hong Kong context. The thesis underlying the paper is that cultural issues need to be more carefully considered in the policy and adoption stages of the innovation process. In English Language teaching, it may be necessary to reflect more deeply on the suitability of the export of Western-based learner-centred, communicative or task-based approaches to other milieux where such approaches may not be commensurate with the local cultural context.
[Copyright of Language, Culture and Curriculum is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908319908666581]

The purpose of this article is to analyse the nature of the School-based Curriculum Project Scheme (SBCPS), which was introduced into the Hong Kong education system in 1988. The aims of the scheme were to promote school-based curriculum development (SBCD) designed to meet the learning needs of pupils and to encourage teachers to solve curriculum problems. Overall, the article provides insights into the characteristics of the SBCPS which was introduced into a highly centralized context and was initiated through a highly centralized mechanism, and describes how it was implemented into Hong Kong schools. This underlines the need both to view curriculum policies critically and to recognize the impact that the prevailing culture in schools has on attempts at curriculum innovations.
[Copyright of Curriculum Journal is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0958517990100307]