During the COVID-19 pandemic, teaching and learning activities had to be conducted fully online. To sustain quality education, teachers could use open educational resources (OERs) available in the public domain to make online mathematics teaching more effective and interactive. However, we currently know little about the use of OERs in primary school settings. Therefore, this study seeks to understand their school policies and guidelines on and teachers’ experience of using OERs during the pandemic. Our overarching goal is to provide recommendations on the future development and use of OERs in the context of primary school mathematics education. We employed a qualitative approach and interviewed 13 mathematics teachers from different primary schools. Our findings suggest that teachers tended to rely on OERs more during the pandemic than before. They used OERs to introduce mathematics and to facilitate class interactions in online lessons. However, not all schools had policies and guidelines on the use of OERs in place. Some teachers also encountered challenges when using OERs, such as finding that the resources were unsuitable for school contexts and lower primary school students. Based on the findings, we discuss some possible strategies for the improvement, such as ensuring the suitability of OERs, through developer–teacher collaborations. Copyright © 2022 by the authors.

Today’s learning environments are providing unique challenges and opportunities for learners to interact with different technologies in meaningful, relevant, and innovative ways. The advent of digital educational game-based technologies has precipitated a growing need for faculty to engage learners and keep them motivated and challenged. In digital game-based active learning, immersion and flow are two essential elements of the player experience that occur during game play. Both these concepts are theoretically distinct, but significantly related from an empirical perspective. Immersion focuses on sensory cues that engage the player’s mind via sensory stimulation, such as how involved the player is in the gaming experience and what response is expected on the part of the player. Flow centers on the cognitive aspects of the gaming experience, emphasizing the relationship between a challenging activity and the skills of a player, but also comprising of engagement, control, challenge, and feedback. A motivation for using digital games to support learning is that well designed game-based learning can provide experiences of immersion and flow, thereby simulating authentic problem-solving tasks that combine instruction, learning, and assessment. Players are immersed through interactive " game-like” activities in a competitive game play format and subsequently driven by optimally challenging tasks. Hence, digital game-based learning technologies have the means to immerse players by retaining motivation within the game by providing mastery feedback at multiple levels. Using Badaboom!, a game-based classroom response system developed by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, this paper sets forth a conceptual framework for immersion and flow in digital game-based learning. Copyright © 2019 Common Ground Research Networks, Ronnie H. Shroff, Fridolin S. Z. Ting, Wai Hung Lam, Some Rights Reserved (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

Art educators claim that Visual Culture Art Education (VCAE) can facilitate students' critical thinking skills and creativity. This article explores a study conducted in Hong Kong senior secondary schools that analysed the extent to which VCAE promotes creativity and critical thinking skills using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The discussion identifies the ways that VCAE students made connections between their everyday life experiences, social lives, and culture and in the process developed their creativity and critical thinking skills. Copyright © 2021 Art Education Australia.

In the face of Hong Kong’s high grade-retention rates, this study aimed to investigate how Hong Kong secondary schools’ grade-retention composition is associated with student performance and socioeconomic inequality in student performance. As the research questions involved analysis at the school and student levels, this study employed hierarchical linear modelling to analyse the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 data. While grade retention was often suggested to have a negative impact on repeaters’ performance in studies using the same-age comparison strategy, this study found that a higher proportion of retained students at school was not associated with a reduction in students’ performance. However, greater socioeconomic inequality in student achievement was found in schools with higher retention rates. In addition to providing plausible explanations for these findings, this paper discusses the potential role of the government’s retention policies in these respects. Copyright © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This study assessed the effect of a teacher professional development (PD) programme that incorporated culturally responsive teaching on Chinese kindergarten teachers’ perceptions of learning motivation of ethnic minority (EM) vs. Chinese pupils in Hong Kong. The moderating role of classroom ethnic composition was examined. Forty-five teachers in the intervention group attended 20 sessions of PD courses over 10 months, whereas 40 teachers who did not attend the current programme formed a control group. Pre- and post-tests were conducted to assess teacher perceptions of learning motivation and engagement of Chinese and EM pupils. Hierarchical structure of data was accounted for with multilevel modelling. Results showed that the intervention resulted in positive changes in teacher perceptions of learning motivation of EM (vs. Chinese) pupils among teachers working in classrooms with low proportions of EM pupils when compared to teachers in the control group. The findings highlighted that teachers’ cultural diversity training programmes should be evaluated in relation to classroom ethnic composition and other contextual factors that influence the quality and frequency of interethnic contact. Copyright © 2022 International Review of Finance Ltd.

This article reports on the results of a qualitative interpretive pilot study investigating the role of comic strips on tertiary ESP learners’ motivation and discipline-specific language learning. The participants were 10 third-year students enrolled in two discipline-specific English courses at a university in Hong Kong. The results show that integrating multimodality through comic strips helped to transform the traditional delivery of instruction and also motivated and facilitated learners’ understanding of discipline-specific concepts and vocabulary. Participants also indicated that technology contributed to more student agency and fostered language creativity as they expended more effort in their learning. The findings suggest the need for ESP teachers to explore technology and integrate creativity and multimodality in the delivery of discipline-specific course content. Copyright © 2021 Asian ESP Journal.

In Hong Kong, the Education Bureau (EDB) regularly assesses the quality of services provided by publicly subsidized kindergartens to children aged 3 to 6. Quality Review (QR) reports are written by government officials and published on the EDB's website. This study analyzes the feedback pertaining to Arts and Creativity to better understand the role this learning area plays in Hong Kong kindergartens. Lexical and content analyses were applied on 164 QR reports published between 2017 and 2020. Findings showed that: (1) the role of Arts and Creativity in the QR reports is relatively minor, which suggests that this learning area is somewhat secondary in Hong Kong kindergartens; (2) presence of the various art forms differs significantly, with Music and Visual Arts being more frequent than Drama and especially Dance; and (3) classroom activities seem to be teacher-centered, product-oriented, and reproductive. Findings suggest that the Arts and Creativity pedagogies enacted in Hong Kong kindergartens are not fully consistent with the official kindergarten Curriculum Guide, which draws on a Western conceptualization of creativity in the arts. We argue that this curriculum/practice gap reveals the need for local stakeholders to embrace a "glocalization" paradigm. Limitations, future research, and implications are discussed. Copyright © 2022 Jerry Yeung et al.

Self-financing higher education institutions (SfHEIs) in Hong Kong help boost the local higher education participation rate, but they are labeled as second-tier opportunities for those with academic weaknesses. Students at SfHEIs may develop a negative self-concept that deteriorates their academic performance and psychological wellness. Therefore, it is critical to understand their self-concept and how it is built. From the narrative perspective, a self-concept is the storied experiences or stories that are lived; therefore, this study employs narrative inquiry using 15 SfHEI students to represent the general pattern of the participants’ experiences. This study proves that students at SfHEIs tend to view themselves as losers or inferiors based on their low self-evaluations of their Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE) results, SfHEIs, and career futures. Additionally, this study sheds new light that the loser identity is historically developed from childhood during interactions with parents and teachers, as parents and teachers continuously reinforce the message that enrollment at a publicly funded university is the only way to achieve success in life. Copyright © 2022 by the authors.

依西方早期對宗教（Religion）一詞的常見定義，乃是：「對超乎人類控制力量的信仰與崇拜，尤其指涉位格神或諸神」。然而，作為宗教的定義，則此種定義方式，明顯與世界的宗教現況不合。因之，美國的神學家與哲學家保羅．田立克（Paul Tillich）與牟宗三先生，均提出以「終極關懷」（ultimate concern）來重新定義信仰。筆者必須指出，依這種對「終極關心」對宗教作重新的定義。我們可以借用中國傳統的一句老話──「開宗立教」，來描述宗教（尤其東方宗教）的展示模式。中國宗教的最基本模態，乃是以下兩方面構成的：其一、關懷宇宙終極的意義──開宗；其二、建立種種教法以引導人生歸於價值之正趨──立教。對於中國長期強勢的教育傳統而言，則立教的意意，可能不止於「日常生活之軌道」，同時必須把這種價值觀傳遍整個社群。是以，星雲法師指出：「由於宗教的生命都有傳燈，都是代代傳承，燈續常明。」佛教的教義最能貼近「生命教育」的意涵。佛家這種立教／成教的傾向，表現在香港社會中，即依本港「家庭與學校合作事宜委員會」於網上的《小學概覽》，在全港513家小學中，有314家小學的辦學團體是宗教團體，已佔全港小學的61.2％。由是觀之，在香港不同宗教團體，均重視以辦學來立教／成教。此亦是本文所以作之因緣，即以全港最大佛教辦學團體──香港佛教聯合會，屬下七家小學，作為觀察對象，以見出「香港小學校佛化生命教育」的情狀，並提供可能提昇的方向。Referring to the Western world's earlier definition, the word "religion" is defined as "the belief and worship towards superhuman power, especially involving a hypostatic god or gods". However, serving as the definition of a religion, this approach is clearly not applicable to the modern religious scene. Accordingly, Paul Tillich, American theologian and philosopher, and Mou Tsungsan have both suggested redefining religions with "ultimate concern". It must be pointed out that, according to the new definition of religions as "ultimate concern", we can refer to an old Chinese saying - set up a sect and then establish a religion (開宗立教) - to describe the presentation of religions, particularly oriental ones. The basic module of Chinese religions consists of two aspects: 1) concerns on the ultimate meaning of the universe (a sect ); 2) establishment of dogmas to lead lives onto the right track (a religion). To the long-established and strong tradition of religious education in China, the meaning of a religion might be beyond "daily life tracks"; its value has to be spread among the entire community. Master Hsing Yun has thus pointed out "because the life of a religion works with passing down its values, the Buddhist dogmas come the closest with the true meaning of Life Education". The Buddhist tendency of religion establishment presents itself in the Hong Kong society, with

In this chapter, the authors use a policy and program perspective to explore the specific career development needs of gifted learners in Hong Kong. They first examine recent developments in gifted education and career education policies in Hong Kong, then draw on relevant literature to highlight salient career development needs of gifted learners. Next, consideration is given to possible priority content for career guidance programs for these students, and some existing programs are reviewed. The chapter ends with a summary of the implications for educators, counselors, researchers and policy-makers. Copyright © 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.