Liberal studies (LS) textbooks used in Hong Kong public secondary schools have incurred controversy regarding perceived biased contents; however, what appears uncertain are what techniques the textbooks used to incite hostility towards the mainland of China and encourage students to participate in violent acts in Hong Kong. The present study used Michel Foucault's order of discourse theory, particularly the "division and rejection" framework regarding the power of discourse to analyze five popular LS textbooks. The findings reveal that the textbooks depict a division between the fabricated irrational image of the mainland and the rational image of Hong Kong. Specifically, the textbooks paint Chinese patriotism as irrational while encouraging the student readers to reject their Chinese identity. The textbooks also create a division between altruistic and capable civilians and passive, silent ones, with the morality of the former being connected to violence and radicalism. In this way, the textbooks produce a discourse of hostility towards the mainland and the people in the mainland while encouraging violence. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.

The present study reports on the effects of a self-regulated (SRL) writing strategy-based intervention supported with e-learning tools on SRL strategy use in English writing with 468 Hong Kong primary school students. The changes to the students’ motivation in English writing, and their e-learning acceptance were also measured. The study adopted a pretest and posttest design and the data was collected through a questionnaire, which consisted of three measures, i.e. SRL writing strategy use, motivation in English writing, and e-learning acceptance. The SRL writing strategy use measure included four types of strategies, i.e. planning, text-generating, monitoring, and revising. The motivation measure had two scales, i.e. interest and self-efficacy, and the e-learning acceptance measure included four scales, i.e. perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude and continuance intention. The intervention saw significant improvements on the students’ use of all four types of SRL writing strategies. Positive changes also took place to one scale of motivation, i.e. interest, and three scales of e-learning acceptance, i.e. perceived usefulness, attitude and continuance intention. There was no significant improvement to self-efficacy and perceived ease of use. Additionally, the correlations between all the scales became stronger after the intervention. Important implications for teaching ESL/EFL writing through e-learning are drawn. Copyright © 2022 Taylor & Francis.

This study investigates the relationship between values and academic major in university students in Hong Kong. The study used a survey based on a convenience sample of 645 university students in Hong Kong who responded to a questionnaire comprising Schwartz's Values Survey and Super's Work Values Inventory. Comparison between several majors of study and their counterparts reveals that business, as well as humanities and art, students demonstrated general and work values in accordance with the literature. This gains partial support to the claim that there is a close connection between values and choice of academic majors. Copyright © 2022 SAGE Publications.

This paper provides a taxonomy of errors in the use of English articles by Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners. A study was conducted with 387 Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners, including 65 students from three local universities and 322 students from five local secondary schools. They did two free writing tasks of about 200–300 words. Over 600 pieces of free writing were obtained. The use of English articles was analyzed and errors were identified. Irrespective of learners' proficiency levels, similar types of article errors have been observed. While over-extension errors and under-extension errors are both quite common, co-occurrence errors are nearly non-existent. Intended generic reference triggers most problems, although this reference has been least attempted. The function of the noun phrase in which an article error occurs may play a part in error severity, with Object creating most problems for learners, yet the precise effects of noun functions are yet to be determined. It is suggested that more emphasis be put on the teaching of English articles to learners at different proficiency levels. Advanced learners, such as university students, should be engaged in metalinguistic analyses uncovering the subtle differences between the use of different articles in the same linguistic context. Copyright © 2022 De Gruyter.

The effect of ICT use on students’ academic achievement continues to be debated. While positive, negative, and non-significant linear relationships have been reported in the literature, few studies have examined the non-linear relationship between ICT use and academic achievement. Guided by the Opportunity-Propensity framework, this study addressed this gap by examining the non-linear relationships between four types of ICT use and students’ academic achievement. A two-level multiple indicators multiple causes model was conducted using Mplus version 8.0 on a representative sample of 15-year-old Hong Kong secondary students (N = 6,037, mean age = 15.73 years, 48.9% girls) from 152 schools. The results showed a linear, negative link between ICT use at school and ∩-shape links between ICT use for outside-of-school learning (with the peak at the 50 percentile), ICT use for leisure (with the peak at the 80 percentile), and using ICT as a topic in social interactions (with the peak at the 1 percentile) and their academic achievement. These findings suggest that stakeholders should always take caution when promoting ICT use at school and ensure that its use does not interfere with students’ learning activities outside of school. Copyright © 2022 Elsevier.

Today, many countries ensure that student teachers get into the real classrooms, practice in there, spend more time and translate theoretical knowledge into practice in schools during Initial Teacher Education. So that they can receive stronger support in the practicum process, and they can develop themselves. However, schools have been closed in so many countries due to the Covid-19 pandemic preventions. Therefore, countries have rearranged the teaching practicum process. The aim of this study, which was carried out with a systematic review, is to comparatively examine the teaching practicum processes of different countries during the Covid-19 pandemic. With a systematic review made according to certain criteria, teaching practicum in the Covid-19 in the countries of Australia, Canada (Ontario State), England, Greece, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Portugal, South Africa, Turkey, the United States of America (New York State) and Zimbabwe were examined. According to the findings, it has been seen that some countries have removed or stretched the teaching practicum requirement during the Covid-19, while some countries have carried out online teaching practicum (i) in K-12 schools, (ii) with peer learning, or (iii) using VR technology, and one country re-opened the schools after a short closure. Copyright © 2022 International Association of Educators.

The main purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness for L2 English learners of a new direct approach to segmental pronunciation instruction that combined articulatory instruction with abdominal enhancement techniques. The participants were Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong, where the school curriculum relies chiefly on indirect instruction within a task-based language teaching (TBLT) framework. Thus a second purpose of the study was to examine whether the direct approach may be a useful addition to the Hong Kong curriculum. Randomly-assigned experimental and comparison groups of recent school graduates completed pronunciation tasks embedded within a TBLT framework. However, the experimental group had direct attention drawn to the segmental sounds, including advice and feedback on how to produce them, while the comparison group did not. Both groups completed a pretest/posttest reading-aloud task. The segments targeted in this test (and in the instruction) involved selected long vowel/diphthong sounds, voiced fricative consonants, and /t/ and /d/ in syllable-final consonant clusters. Results showed the experimental group significantly outperformed the comparison group overall and in each of these segmental categories, highlighting the importance of the direct articulatory–abdominal instruction. The results also suggested such instruction should be given greater attention in the Hong Kong curriculum. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.

Objective: In view of the values of individualism and competition embedded in neoliberalism and global capitalism, this paper seeks to illustrate empirically students' instrumentalism in higher education, and to explore how far such instrumentalism could be conceptualized as student alienation. Method: The illustration relies on experiences of community college students from an ethnographic study of students studying in a liberal-arts oriented community college in Hong Kong. The study begun in 2005 to 2006, continued in 2009, and followed up in 2010 to 2011. Eighty-five students in total were recruited and interviewed; 39 of them were interviewed twice. The interviews were analyzed together with the author's observations and participation as a lecturer of that community college. Results: Against an intensely competitive environment, community college students were rather instrumental in their studies. Their alienation was also manifested in the following aspects: being instrumental about their career planning, preferring surface and strategic learning to deep learning in their studies, and being strategic or even manipulative in dealing with their classmates or teachers. Conclusion: This study provides a nuanced analysis of different aspects of student alienation. Student alienation is worrying, not simply because students are not learning what is required for becoming the educated workforce or citizens, but arguably because throughout the course of their studies, students acquire qualities that may make competitive employees for the cruel business world but do not necessarily make caring or critical citizens. Copyright © 2022 SAGE Publications.

Since the early days of COVID-19, university teaching has changed from face-to-face format to online mode. With the gradual containment of the pandemic, there is no need for school lockdown. As a result, the teaching format has changed to HyFlex mode integrating both face-to-face and online modes. Obviously, it is necessary to understand the academic quality of life among students under the Hyflex teaching mode. In this paper, we report an evaluation study on a leadership subject in Hong Kong delivered via HyFlex teaching using a post-lecture evaluation strategy. In one of the lectures, we covered law-abiding leadership in university students, including abiding by the Hong Kong National Security Law. The post-lecture evaluation showed that students generally held positive views toward the HyFlex teaching and they perceived that the subject promoted their well-being indexed by psychosocial competence. Regarding the lecture on law-abiding leadership, students agreed that the lecture promoted their psychosocial competence, personal development, knowledge about law-abiding behavior and national security (including the Hong Kong National Security Law), and readiness to serve as socially responsible leaders. Positive perceptions of the lecture design, teacher performance, lecture content of law-abiding leadership and national security, and benefits positively predicted students’ overall satisfaction with the lecture on law-abiding leadership and national security. Copyright © 2022 Springer.

Minoritised students with dis/abilities in Hong Kong may face aggregated challenges. As a minoritised student with dis/ability or impairment, they may be doubly marginalised or triply marginalised, as in the case of a female or poor minoritised student with dis/ability or impairment. Little is known, however, about these students or about the underpinning philosophies of existing support. Adopting an intersectionality approach and dis/ability critical race theory (DisCrit), this paper explores the educational provision and existing support measures for minoritised students with dis/abilities and the issues and challenges faced by them. It draws on various policy documents from related government departments and others. The paper presents three theoretical arguments: (1) that dis/ability discourse needs to be more inclusive; (2) that the medical model currently provides limited support for minoritised students with dis/abilities in Hong Kong; and (3) that a social model, rather than the current medical model would provide inclusive support. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.