Perception involves the discovery, detection, impression, interpretation and comprehension of a particular event and is a kind of human mental activities. Lots of research investigate this psychological phenomenon by exploring the teachers' thinking processes and ways of construing their perception (Eibaz, 1981; Morine- Dershimer, 1009; Schon, 1983. As reflective practitioners, teachers develop schemata on how to teach or make decision effectively in their classroom teaching. They form judgments about their students' academic performance and classroom behaviors, and evaluate them to see if they are acceptable or unacceptable, typical or atypical, normal or deviant. These judgments become the basis of their decisions which lead to the subsequent responses or behavioral patterns. The ability of perceiving the nature and severity of classroom problems and making judgments is unique and crucial in the process of early identification. The schemata they use help them to identify the learning, emotional or conduct cause of a particular behavioral problem. However, teachers from different backgrounds (primary, secondary, special education, remedial teaching, pre-service or inservice teachers) will have a perceptual difference on behavioral problems. A survey investigating the teachers' perception of children with behavioral problems was conducted on 568 school teachers in Hong Kong. Teachers of different backgrounds were presented with the descriptions of some typical behavioral problems and they had to judge the learning, emotion or conduct cause of the cases. This study attempted to explore how well the teachers with distinct school backgrounds perceived the presented cases. The result revealed that most teachers perceived more learning problems but fewer conduct problems in the cases. The teachers found to be sensible to the learning and emotion causes of their children . Different groups of teachers held divergent views on perceiving the cases. More secondary and student

The Chinese version of the Beck Depression Inventory (C-BDI) was administered to all the 155 adolescents currently attending special schools for maladjusted boys in Hong Kong and 132 of them completed the questionnaire. Utilizing cut-off points developed by Beck, 44 adolescents (33.3%) were nondepressed, 26 (19.7%) were mildly depressed, 26 (19.7%) were moderately depressed and 36 (27.3%) were severly depressed. Total BDI scores of subjects were not signficantly related to age, length of stay in special schools or acting out behaviors. However, subjects observed to have acting out behaviors by their class teachers were found to be suffering from substantial depressive symptomatology and not as what their surface behaviors indicate.
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OBJECTIVE: To compare parental perception of child behaviour problems, parenting stress, and marital satisfaction in new arrival and local parents. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey; semi-structured interview. SETTING: Maternal and Child Health Centres, social service centres, preschools. PARTICIPANTS: Parents of preschool children, including new arrival parents and local parents. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Child behaviour problems, parenting stress, and marital satisfaction. RESULTS: After controlling for socio-economic factors, new arrival parents were more troubled by their children's behaviour problems and their parent-child interactions were more dysfunctional than those of local parents. There were no differences in parent-reported severity of child behaviour problems, parental distress, and marital satisfaction. New arrival parents reported difficulties in adapting to the new living environment and lack of social support. CONCLUSIONS: New arrival parents were more troubled by their children's behaviour, and their parent-child interactions were more dysfunctional than those of local parents. These might in part be related to their settlement difficulties. Parenting programmes should address their specific settlement needs.
[Copyright of Hong Kong Medical Journal is the property of Hong Kong Academy of Medicine & Hong Kong Medical Association.]

Empirical evidence of Asian students' traditional citizenship values was provided in the Asian Regional Module (ARM) of the International Civic and Citizenship Study. This paper is based on a secondary analysis of the ARM data. Three issues are addressed. First, a theoretical analysis of the ARM constructs contributes to their construct validity. Second, the endorsement of these constructs by students from five Asian societies is compared indicating that some of the differences between societies were statistically significant, although effect sizes were generally weak or moderate. Third, the predictive validity of the constructs was examined. They had a small but differential effect on students' civic knowledge and a generally negligible effect on school participation. Variance at school and individual level accounted for by the ARM constructs differed across societies. The implications of these results for civic education and future research in the field are discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2013.775003]

Objective: To examine the effect of depressive symptoms and satisfaction with family support (FS) on physical and mental Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL). Methods: Data were obtained from the Hong Kong FAMILY Project baseline survey in 2009-2011, which included 16,039 community residents (age >= 20). The FS was measured using the Family Adaptation, Partnership, Growth, Affection, Resolve (APGAR, range 0-10) Questionnaire. HRQoL were assessed using the SF-12 version 2. Depressive symptoms were recorded using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Demographic and lifestyle variables, stressful life events, perceived neighborhood cohesion were also assessed. Results: In a multilevel regression model, socio-demographic and behavioral variables explained 21% and 19% of the variance in physical and mental HRQoL. The presence of depressive symptoms (PHQ-9 score >= 10, standardized coefficients, beta of -1.73) and high FS (APGAR score 7-10, 1.15) were associated with mental HRQoL, after adjustment for age, education, household monthly income, drinking status, physical activity, chronic conditions, life stress and neighborhood cohesion. Not FS but the presence of depressive symptoms (beta of -0.88) was associated with physical HRQoL. The presence of depressive symptoms in women than men were more associated with a poorer physical HRQoL (p<0.01) while depressive symptoms in men were associated with a decrease in mental HRQoL (p<0.001). The interaction between FS and depressive symptoms was nonsignificant in relation to HRQoL. Among those with depressive symptoms, high FS was associated with a better mental HRQoL (41.1 vs. 37.9, p<0.001) in women but not contribute to variance in men. Conclusions: Higher FS and presence of depressive symptoms were significantly associated with HRQoL in general population in Hong Kong. Among those with depressive symptoms, high FS was associated with a favorable mental HRQoL in women but not men.
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