This chapter reports the results of a study that evaluates the effectiveness of a Philosophy in Schools (PIS) programme in developing students’ thinking skills and English competence in Hong Kong. Sixty-two Secondary 3 English as a Second Language (ESL) students and their three Integrated Humanities (IH) teachers participated in this study. With training and support from the researcher, the participating teachers taught the participating students PIS in English during IH lessons. The students were found to be capable of reasoning and arguing in a competent way about philosophical problems arising from various stimuli prepared by their teachers according to the IH curriculum. It was also found that PIS played a major role in promoting the students’ critical and creative thinking, and helped the development of their English language proficiency to a significant extent. In addition, both the students and teachers were found to have a generally positive attitude towards doing philosophy in the classroom. The findings of this study suggest that integrating philosophy into the IH curriculum can promote critical thinking, creative thinking, and English language proficiency in ESL students. Copyright © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Chi-Ming Lam; individual chapters, the contributors.

This work-in-progress poster discusses our preliminary work on exploring the possibility of harnessing spherical video-based immersive virtual reality (SV-IVR) in learning and teaching of Physical Geography. In particular, it focuses on delineating (i) the rationale behind our initiative, and (ii) the proposed direction of how to adopt SV-IVR in the context of formal schooling in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2019 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.

Until the reforms of the late 1990s, the music curriculum for Hong Kong primary schools focused largely on singing, instrumental playing and listening. Musical creativity, on the other hand, had been largely neglected. In 1997, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China announced that Hong Kong would be transformed to become a ‘knowledge-based’ society. The old school curriculum deemed to be deficient in terms of the intended policy initiatives. A reform of the education system took place with nine generic skills, in which creativity is regarded as one of the main foci, being introduced.Undoubtedly influenced by a large body of research findings that support the contention that Information Technology is a powerful tool for assisting students to learn to compose music, fourteen primary schools in Hong Kong have been set up with computer-based music rooms with the financial support of the Quality Education Fund (QEF). Of these fourteen schools, twelve have focused on the application of technology on musical creativity and teachers in these schools employ various forms of information technology to promote learning through creative music activities. Some methods have proven successful while others have been less so.This paper discusses the implementation of technology-based teaching of musical creativity and analyses the teaching strategies used by the twelve QEF-supported schools. The paper concludes by proposing alternative technology-based strategies — derived from the experience of other countries — that may have the potential to increase the effectiveness of teaching for musical creativity in Hong Kong schools. Copyright © 2005 School of Music, University of Washington.

This paper discusses how IT changes the way of teaching and learning of music composition at school. Four music teachers in Hong Kong took part in a series of semi-structured interviews. They described how they had employed IT in teaching music composition and what types of musical products their students were able to create. It was found that the teachers were simply substituting IT for paper and pencil to notate musical pieces, and they were using a rather traditional “practice and drill” approach to teach music composition. A teaching framework, called Pedagogical Framework for Music Composition with Information Technology (PFMCIT), was thus formulated. The purpose of the framework is to promote the more effective student-centered approach in teaching music composition. It is hoped that the framework can help to improve pre-service and in-service music teachers’ knowledge and skills in the area of IT-assisted music composition education, and to establish a better technological environment for teachers to develop students’ creativity. Copyright © 2012 International Society for Music Education (ISME).

Many Hong Kong Chinese parents believe that music training enhances the academic achievement of their children. The current study investigates the relationship between the extent and outcome of students' music training, their perceptions of the value of the subjects they study and their academic achievement. A total of 286 students in Primary 4, 5 and 6 from one school in Hong Kong reported the extent and outcome of their music training, including the number of instruments they studied, the number of years spent training, highest grade and highest level achieved. For value, students completed a subscale of the Achievement Task Value Questionnaire to measure their "liking and interest," perceived "importance" and "usefulness" of their school subjects. A nested structural equation model showed that, for both boys and girls, the extent and outcome of music training positively predicts academic achievement in Chinese, English and mathematics. Furthermore, the model shows that for both boys and girls, students' perceived value of their school subjects negatively predicts academic achievement in Chinese, and age has a direct and negative effect on mathematics achievement. For girls, age positively moderates the extent and outcome of music training on academic achievement whereas the moderator effect of age on students' perceived value of academic subjects is non-significant. For boys, in contrast, the moderator effect of age on extent and outcome of music training is non-significant, whereas its effect on students' perceived value of academic subjects is negative. In broad terms, the results show that parents are justified in believing that music training is positively related to academic achievement. However, the results differ for boys and girls in connection to the role of age in this relationship.
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Aims and objectives: To test the effectiveness of a musical training programme in promoting happiness and quality of life of Hong Kong Chinese underprivileged preschool children. Background: The impact of poverty and income disparity on the psychological wellbeing of children remains a profound global public health concern. There is substantial evidence that poverty and income disparity have many negative impacts on children's psychological well‐being, adversely affecting their quality of life. Methods: A nonequivalent, quasi‐experimental, two‐group, pretest and post‐test, between‐subjects design was conducted with 171 Hong Kong Chinese underprivileged preschool children (aged 3–6 years). Participants (n = 100) in the experimental group attended a weekly 1‐hr musical training lesson for 12 weeks conducted by the Music Children Foundation. Participants (n = 71) in the wait list control group received the same training after all data had been collected. Data collection for both groups was conducted at baseline and 12‐week follow‐up. The measured outcomes were happiness level and quality of life. A TREND checklist was completed. Results: Participants in the experimental group reported significantly higher levels of happiness (p = .002) and quality of life (p = .44) than those in the wait list control group. Conclusions: The present study indicates the effectiveness of a musical training programme in promoting happiness and quality of life of Hong Kong Chinese underprivileged preschool children. It also demonstrated the feasibility of implementing the programme in a community context. Relevance to clinical practice: This study aids to inform nurses the beneficial effect of the musical training programme in improving underprivileged children's psychological well‐being and quality of life. Indeed, community nurses may act as facilitators to promote the musical training programme to underprivileged children. The involvement of community nurses may greatly enhance the sustainability

To tackle the serious problems caused by plastic wastes, it is critical to develop new plastic recycling beliefs and behavior, together with recycling skills (4 important steps of recycling: cleanliness, separation, compression, and sorting) of the plastic wastes in environmental education (EE). The study revealed the effectiveness of a plastic waste recycling program adopting an action competence approach with educational interventions using a new plastic waste recycling bin (PRB). The PRB allows further classification of plastic waste types. Seven primary schools in Hong Kong participated in the program. A total of 313 questionnaires which assessed pupils’ classification knowledge, behaviours of plastic waste recycling, and their pro-environmental attitudes in terms of New Environmental Paradigm were received. Semi-structured interview with 27 pupils from the schools were also conducted. Recycling performance (actual behaviour) of using the brown bins (general plastic recycling bin) and the PRBs in the schools was assessed as the evidence of action competence in plastic waste recycling. Comparing the schools which adopted programmes with a combination of two types of recycling bins (brown bin vs. PRB) and interventions (Poster vs. half/full training courses to teach the recycling knowledge and skill), both quantitative and qualitative results showed that learners of the program enhanced their recycling knowledge (K), attitudes (A), and behaviour (B) concerning plastic waste recycling. The recycling performance proved that there is a statistically significant change in the recycling steps, separation and compression. The study provides insights for environmental educators to develop strategic solutions to ease environmental issues as well as putting these actions into practice in schools. Copyright © 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.