The research reported in this paper used the Online Learning Environment Survey (OLES) as a tool to evaluate e-learning environments. Data gathered from university classes in Hong Kong using blended e-learning were used to illustrate the value of OLES in helping educators reflect on the online learning environment provided for students. Comments from interviews were used to verify the data gathered online. OLES was found to be a valuable instrument for gathering data to help educators reflect on what had worked or what might be improved in their classes. These educators were also able to see the extent to which the actual experiences of students in the module matched their preferred online learning environment.
[Copyright of Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite) at http://www.ascilite.org.au]

This study examined the interrelationship among achievement goals, study strategies and achievement of 473 students in a Hong Kong tertiary institution by means of questionnaire survey. Correlational analyses showed that performance goal was significantly and positively related to both surface and deep strategies while learning goal was significantly and positively related to deep strategy but negatively related to surface strategy. However there was no significant relation between achievement and goals or achievement and study strategies held by the sample. The results validated the applicability of an adapted instrument developed in western countries to measure achievement goal orientations in the Hong Kong context. It also gave support to the western findings that students who hold learning goals usually adopt a deep approach of study while students who are performance goal orientated tend to be shallow in study approach. Nevertheless, it was interesting to find that achievement was not significantly related to either the goals or study strategies held by students in the sample. The results were in contrast to the usual assumption that students who are performance goal oriented and adopt shallow approach in study would score low in academic achievement. Further investigation would be necessary to verify the effects of these variables on achievement of students.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]

Preservice teachers' focus of concern and confidence to teach are often considered to be important elements of teachers' growth and development. Fuller's (1969) model of three concerns, viz. "self", "task" and "impact" have been widely referred to by researchers in the study of teacher professional development and covered in teacher education programmes. The author of this paper attempted to conduct a survey study of a course of preservice secondary teachers in the Hong Kong Institute of Education to examine their focus of concerns and confidence to teach as part of the investigated areas of teacher development. The purpose was to see whether there was any difference from that proposed by Fuller due to different cultural context. The obtained results supported Fuller's model of concerns in that the "self" concerns were prominent and dominating within the sample under study. In this respect, there is little difference between the western and Hong Kong sample of preservice teachers' focus of concern. Of the "self" concerns, class discipline, acceptance by students and teachers' mastery of subject knowledge and teaching skill were classified the most important ones by the Hong Kong preservice teachers. These concerns were also closely related to the important factors which they considered for successful teaching. The high level of confidence and optimism exhibited before teaching practice also supported Weinstein's (1989, 1990) findigns that preservice teachers, whether elementary or high school teachers were unrealistically optimistic about teaching. The similarity in findings between the Hong Kong and the western samples studied by Fuller and Weinstein suggest the plausibility of utilizing western principles and concepts in local context. Above this, the author would like to draw the attention of teacher educators and program planners to the underlying reasons given by preservice teachers about their changes in confidence, optimism and concerns before and after teaching

Different and at times contradictory descriptions exist in the literature about the ways in which Asian students approach their learning. While educators with experience in teaching Asian students perceived them as passive, dependent, uncritical, and more prone to rote learning than western students, researchers who investigated empirically the learning approaches of Asian students held that these students were neither more oriented towards a surface approach nor less inclined to use a deep approach than western students. Differences in cultural characteristics and conceptions have bee proposed to account for Asian students' learning practices and to explain the discrepancies in views about Asian students. However, there is not much empirical research on comparisons of the learning behaviours of students from different cultures. This paper reports on a study that explores and compares the learning beliefs and practices of university students from a Chinese (Hong Kong) and a western (Australian) culture. Comparisons between the students were made on: the relative frequencies with which they reported using the learning behaviours; the frequencies with which they used the behaviours in different learning situations; their use of similar behaviours across various situations; and their preferences for particular types of learning behaviours. The results showed that the Australian and the Hong Kong students were similar in the relative frequencies with which they reported using the various behaviours and in what they reported to engage in most and least frequently in the various learning situations. However, they were different in the frequencies with which they reported using specific learning behaviours, particularly when spending their leisure time. These results suggest that educators should pay more attention to both similarities and subtle differences between students from different cultures or countries, rather than assuming that students from certain cultures or countries