教師工作量過多會引致職業壓力，從而影響教師個人的心理健康和教學效能。世界各地皆曾就教師工作時數作過不少研究，為了探究香港官津小學教師工作量情況，香港初等教育研究學會進行是次調查。此研究採用問卷調查法，以全港732間津貼小學及官立小學教師為對象，於99年初向每間小學郵寄問卷六份，由校方以不記名方式隨機選出兩位行政人員及四位教師填答問卷。 　　結果顯示小學教師平均上課時間約4小時，備課時間約有1小時多，批改評估則佔2.7小時，加上處理學生訓輔時數，每天的工作量約為9小時，再將每週非固定的教學工作時數11小時計算在內，小學教師每週合共花在教學與學校工作方面的時數，達60小時。此外，本研究亦分析教師工作量與其個人背景因素的差異關係，並就近年本港小學教育改革所帶來的工作量與教育質量作進一步分析討論。最後文章就正視及改善香港小學教育工作量作了一些可行的建議。
[Copyright © 2001 優質學校教育學報.]

Gender issues are some of the core concerns of policy, practice and provision in relation to education. There is a popular notion that boys are naughty while girls are good mannered in primary schools. In many studies, boys were found to engage in more rough-and tumble play and physical fighting than do girls (Thorne, 2002). It seems that it is more difficult for teachers to deal with boys than with girls. However, in the emerging literature, within girls, there are different types of emotional and behavioral problems, such as aggression, which is not unusual that teachers may face with. Research with empirical data on how teachers help girls with emotional and behavioral problems is spare. In order to understand more how teachers in training deal with the gender and the nature of students' problem, this study investigates the responses of pre-service teachers in helping students in a guidance training programme, which is a part of a pre-service new B.Ed. module. The study aims to make some suggestions for effective preparation of the pre-service teachers to play their guidance role in Hong Kong primary schools. In an attempt to explore how pre-service teachers developed their capacity in helping students with different gender and nature of problems, two scenarios were used. Case 1 was a by in a helpless situation (with emotional difficulties) while case 2 was an angry girl with aggressive behavior (with emotional and behavioural difficulties). Qualitative research approach in form of case study was used. The sample, 16 student teachers with some seemed to be very aware of, others largely ignorant about the guidance role of teacher were selected for in-depth interviews to chart their development in the training programme. Their responses for handling of two different cases of pupils' problems in the interview schedule were analyzed. The results of the study show that student teachers had developed their abilities in handling pupils' problems in terms of attitude towards

Teaching practice is regarded as an indispensiable component of teacher education programmes. Supervisors from teacher education institutions contribute to student teachers’ learning in teaching practice by paying lesson observation visits and holding post-observation supervisory meetings with student teachers. The question of what constitutes a good supervisory meeting is of great interest to teacher educators. This paper presents a study which looks into supervisors’ subjective accounts of the best supervisory meeting in teaching practice. The study was conducted with lecturers of a former College of Education in Hong Kong who paid lesson observation visits to student teachers in secondary schools. Seventy-five college supervisors completed a self-report inventory on the perceived best supervisory meeting during a block teaching practice period. These meetings involved observed lessons of fifteen subjects at the junior secondary level. Supervisors reported what happened in the perceived best supervisory meeting in retrospect in the inventory. They gave a quantitative account of the time spent on and the themes of discussion in the meetings. Qualitative data were also collected in the inventory. Supervisors reported the conferencing approaches which they adopted in the perceived best meetings. They quoted examples of questions which they asked to facilitate student teachers’ reflection and expressed their views on the characteristics of good supervisory meetings. The time spent on the best supervisory meetings varied a great deal among different supervisors, with a range of 15 to 120 minutes. The most frequently discussed themes in the meetings were student teacher’s instructional approach to the lesson and student teacher’s mastery of the subject matter while the school environment was the least frequently discussed theme. There was also slight difference between elective subject supervisors’ and general supervisors’ focuses of discussion in the meetings. As far as