This paper examines teaching practices prevailing across five cities (Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, Singapore and Taipei) for the underpinning pedagogical identities that inform practice (identity grafting). The study adopts innovative approaches via OECD teacher surveys to identify relationships between pedagogical identities (highly effective, outcome-centred, discipline-centred, diversity-centred and lowly effective) and teaching effectiveness in implementing pedagogically informed practice (instructional: learning-focused and assessments; classroom management: motivational, discipline and diversity). An original concept of identity grafting is employed to highlight which pedagogical identities best support teaching effectiveness (blending, integrating, reversing and repressing). Cluster analysis rigorously compares teachers’ pedagogical identities, teaching effectiveness and identity grafts in all five cities. Shanghai and Singapore have the largest segments of highly effective teachers within the local teacher population. However, Singapore likewise has the largest segment of lowly effective teachers among the cities, and Shanghai teachers are overall less likely to value diversity management than teachers in other cities. Across the cities, teachers who implement diverse practices by blending or integrating, and, to some extent, reversing pedagogical identities, have more effectiveness than those who repress their identities. The results provide globally significant insights into targeted professional development for different teacher segments within and between contexts. Copyright © 2023 International Professional Development Association (IPDA).

Introduction: Understanding the sources and the effects of collective teacher efficacy has been one of the central interests to many educational researchers and practitioners, because it is critical to understand how teachers can shape, and are shaped by, the educational processes in schools. Following the social cognitive perspective on the sources and consequences of efficacy beliefs, this study examined how school support influences collective teacher efficacy which in turn affects teachers’ organizational commitment. Method: The participants included 969 teachers sampled from 28 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. To appropriately address the nature of collective teacher efficacy and school support as school-level variables, the doubly latent multilevel structural equation modeling approach was used to analyze the data. Results: The results revealed the mediation mechanism played by collective teacher efficacy in explaining the effect of school support on teachers’ organizational commitment. Discussion: Schools are suggested to consider fostering a supportive school environment as a strategy to improve teachers’ collective efficacy beliefs if it is wished to enhance teachers’ commitment to schools. Copyright © 2023 Zhang, Lee, Yin and Yang.

Narrative writing task is the foundation of learning how to write, and it is also frequently used in the writing assessment. This study is intended to map Primary 3 and Primary 6 students “writing performance features” reviewed in Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) Chinese writing assessment in Hong Kong. By analysing students’ writing performance as reviewed in the TSA Chinese writing assessment, we can get a glimpse of the language features and linguistic characteristics of the students and their development. The result of the analysis tries to enrich and improve Chinese language teaching and learning of Chinese writing in Hong Kong. The research findings showed and proved the hypothesis that a “Good Performance” Chinese narrative writing in TSA has a more complete narrative schematic structure than that of a student who is “Reaching Basic Competency” in TSA. Texts written by Primary 6 students and students with Good Performance contain a larger number of and diversity in transitivity terms indicating not only material processes but also mental processes and reflect good context cohesion. Copyright © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Mark Shiu-kee Shum and Peter Mickan; individual chapters, the contributors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about an unprecedented challenge to global education. It has changed how many of us, especially our children, learn and gain valuable insights into parenting needs concerning online learning, and digital literacy is more important than ever. However, the digital divide and educational equity have been sharpened amidst the ongoing pandemic; people without access to Information and Communications Technologies are even more disadvantaged than before. In Hong Kong, remote learning has increased exponentially since the outbreak in early 2020, and it has been continued under the “new normal”- which students and educators need to manage and integrate technology into their everyday teaching and learning cycle. When it is specifically essential to ensure equal and inclusive access to remote learning for students, parental involvement should arouse more prominent attention. The emerging problem has been shifting from the opportunity of access to technology to digitally illiterate parents. Hence, this paper will discuss the long-lasting issue between the digital divide and education inequality in Hong Kong, and recommend bridging the digital divide should focus more on nurturing parental digital citizenship and literacy so they can appropriately facilitate the co-learning process with their children in this “new normal” era effectively. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

STEM education has taken on high importance in Hong Kong K-12 education landscape. Despite policy advocacy and curriculum endeavour, the quality of STEM education varies significantly between schools. Research literature indicates that high-quality STEM education requires teachers’ rigorous delivery of topics and appropriate pedagogies, and one approach to improve such practices is teacher professional development (TPD). However, because current research on TPD has not given explicit consideration to the complex nature of STEM education, there remains a lack of a clear blueprint of how TPD should be conducted to build teachers’ capacity for STEM education effectively. This paper presents a case study that explores the necessary attributes and identifies the missing links of STEM education TPD by understanding how various TPD models supported a Hong Kong K-12 school embracing STEM education. Qualitative data collection methods, including semi-structured interviews and classroom observations, were employed to draw a picture of TPD implementations in the selected school. The findings suggest that, at the macro-level, effective STEM TPD should not stop at employing mixed use of TPD models; the models have to be integrated organically with respect to a school-based STEM curriculum implementation approach. A collaborative culture between teachers must be cultivated for effective inter-disciplinary integration. Collaborative action research should also be promoted to develop collective wisdom of STEM pedagogies. At the micro-level, TPACK and cross-disciplinary integration skills need to be focusing areas of STEM TPD. With these guiding principles, some possible strategies for effective STEM education TPD are suggested. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

The growing incidence of mental health problems in adolescents is a significant global concern. School-based counselling, where a student meets with an individual, trained counsellor a number of times in a school setting, is a common component of holistic mental health programmes to support the well-being of students. In Hong Kong, however, professional counselling is in general not well-developed, and school-based counselling has been severely under-researched. Drawing on data from interviews with 8 counsellors and 25 student clients in local secondary schools, the present study aims to investigate the perspectives of counsellors and clients on the practice of school-based counselling in Hong Kong. Following a thematic approach, the study compares the key themes identified in the reflections of counsellors and clients on their experience of counselling. Similarities and differences in the discursive construction and realisation of themes are examined in detail. Representative examples are discussed in context to illustrate the views from both the service providers and users of school-based counselling. Findings from this study will inform and enhance understanding of how school-based counselling can help to promote the mental well-being of students in the local educational setting and in the broader Asian context. Copyright © 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.