Chi-Keung Chan

Early Reading Skills and Academic Achievement Trajectories of Students Facing Poverty, Homelessness, and High Residential Mobility

This investigation tested the importance of early academic achievement for later achievement trajectories among 18,011 students grouped by level of socioeconomic risk. Students considered to be at highest risk were those who experienced homelessness or high residential mobility (HHM). HHM students were compared with students eligible for free meals, students eligible for reduced price meals, and students who were neither HHM nor low income. Socioeconomic risk and oral reading ability in first grade predicted growth of reading and math achievement in Grades 3 through 8. Risk status predicted achievement beyond the effects of early reading scores and also moderated the prediction of later growth in reading achievement from early oral reading. Results underscore the early emergence and persistence of achievement gaps related to poverty, the high and accumulating risk for HHM students, and the significance of oral reading in first grade as both an early indicator of risk and a potential protective factor.

A Latent Class Growth Analysis of School Bullying and Its Social Context: The Self-Determination Theory Perspective.

The contribution of social context to school bullying was examined from the self-determination theory perspective in this longitudinal study of 536 adolescents from 3 secondary schools in Hong Kong. Latent class growth analysis of the student-reported data at 5 time points from grade 7 to grade 9 identified 4 groups of students: bullies (9.8%), victims (3.0%), bully-victims (9.4%), and typical students (77.8%). There was a significant association between academic tracking and group membership. Students from the school with the lowest academic performance had a greater chance of being victims and bully-victims. Longitudinal data showed that all 4 groups tended to report less victimization over the years. The victims and the typical students also had a tendency to report less bullying over the years, but this tendency was reversed for bullies and bully-victims. Perceived support from teachers for relatedness significantly predicted membership of the groups of bullies and victims. Students with higher perceived support for relatedness from their teachers had a significantly lower likelihood of being bullies or victims. The findings have implications for the theory and practice of preventive interventions in school bullying.

Development and Validation of a Clostridium Difficile Risk Assessment Tool

The incidence of Clostridium difficile infection has increased rapidly during the past decade, increasing lengths of stays in the hospital, costs, and mortality rates. To address this increased incidence, we performed a retrospective case-control study using known risk factors to develop a tool to determine which patients are at risk for infection. Multivariate analysis generated a combination of risk factors associated with development of infection including prior admission, endoscopy within 30 days, cephalosporin/fluoroquinolone use, length of stay 7 days or longer, age 65 years or older, body mass index less than 25, and albumin level less than 2.7 g/dL. A weighted scoring tool was created that predicted disease with a sensitivity of 86% and a specificity of 44% in the derivation sample, and 92% sensitivity and a specificity of 39% when applied to the validation sample. Application of this 8-item tool by nurses in multiple settings could aid in the determination of patients who are at risk, allowing prophylactic treatment, prompt isolation of patients, restricted antibiotic use, and decreased testing of low-risk patients.

School Adjustment, Social Support, and Mental Health of Mainland Chinese College Students in Hong Kong

We investigated the relationship of school adjustment and social support with the mental health of mainland Chinese college students studying in Hong Kong. During the spring semester in 2011, 384 mainland Chinese college students across the postsecondary institutions in Hong Kong completed a questionnaire. Results showed that better school adjustment and higher perceived social support had significant positive relationships with the mental health of the mainland Chinese college students, while stress had a negative relationship with their mental health. Social support also acted as a moderator to the relationship between school adjustment and mental health.

The Relations of Secure Attachment Style and Love Satisfaction with Online Relationship Maintenance

The present study examines the relations of secure attachment style and love satisfaction with online relationship maintenance among dating couples in Hong Kong. There were 100 males and 100 females participated in this study and completed a set of questionnaires to obtain the information on their secure attachment style, love satisfaction, and online relationship maintenance via mobile communication apps (MCAs; e.g., WhatsApp). Linear regression analysis and mediation analysis were employed to analyze the data. Results indicated that there was a significant positive relationship between secure attachment style and online relationship maintenance. Besides, the positive association between secure attachment style and online relationship maintenance was fully mediated by love satisfaction. Furthermore, the positive association between secure attachment style and love satisfaction was partially mediated by online relationship maintenance. The findings of this study highlighted the importance of cultivating love satisfaction for online relationship maintenance.

The Roles of Information Seeking and Information Evaluation for Decision-Making Behaviors

This study examines the roles of information seeking and information evaluation for decision-making behaviors, 25 undergraduate students (7 males and 18 females, M age = 18.60, SDage = 1.12) participated in an experiment about information choices on three different types of tasks—academic, affective, and life event. They sought and evaluated information from two major sources—via the Internet or human interactions. The results showed that there was a full mediation effect of information evaluation on the relationship between preference of information seeking and decision-making of information choices for academic and life event-related tasks. Information evaluation had a partial mediation effect for affective task. It showed that evaluation of information by participants played an important role in decision-making behaviors, depending on the contents and natures of the tasks. The effect was relatively high in academic and life event-related tasks, and relatively weak in affective task.

Emoticons and Emotions: Exploring the Roles of Emoticons in Emotional Representativeness, Awareness and Management

This study examines the relationship between emoticons and emotions, specifically, exploring the roles of emoticons on emotional representativeness, awareness and management. This study hypothesizes that the combination of text and emoticons has the greatest effect on emotion representativeness, awareness and management. Also, the effect of emoticons is moderated by the users’ emotions. A 3 (emotions: joy/fear/sadness) × 3 (message patterns: using emoticons only/using text only/emoticons plus text) factorial experimental design was adopted in this study. 154 participants were recruited from a private college in Hong Kong and they were randomly assigned to one of the nine conditions. The results showed that there was no significant main effect of message patterns on emotional representativeness, awareness and management. The main effect of emotions was only significant for emotional management. The interaction effects between emotions and message patterns were also insignificant. This study provides some new insights to understand the roles of emoticons in expressing emotions in Instant Messenger.

The Effect of a Brief Media Intervention on Help-Seeking Attitudes Among College Students in Hong Kong

This experimental study examined the effect of a brief media preventive intervention on help-seeking attitudes among college students in Hong Kong. Sixty local university students aged 17–23 were recruited and randomly assigned to either the experimental group or the control group. Participants in the experimental group (media intervention group) watched a video clip containing a mental health preventive message while participants in the control group watched a neutral video clip without any preventive message. Attitudes toward seeking help from mental health professional were measured before and after the media intervention. The results found that help-seeking attitudes of the experimental group slightly increased from the pretest (M = 6.20, SD = 2.25) to the posttest (M = 6.97, SD = 2.09). Nevertheless, there was no significant difference on the changes in help-seeking attitudes between the experimental group and the control group.