John Chi-Kin Lee

Mentoring Support and the Professional Development of Beginning Teachers: A Chinese Perspective.

For a long time, there has been a tradition in China of experienced teachers helping beginning teachers. This empirical school study investigates the kinds of support that are provided by eight dyads of mentoring teacher and first‐year secondary school teachers in Guangzhou of southern China and the major factors affecting mentoring support. In addition, this research focuses on the professional development of first‐year teachers in areas of subject knowledge, student, teaching and classroom management. The findings reveal that mentors provide four forms of support: provision of information, mutual lesson observation, collaborative lesson preparation and discussion in the office. Factors affecting mentoring support include teaching workload, grade and subject, style of mentor–protégé interactions, relationships between mentor and mentee, incentives for the mentors, and collegial culture in the case study schools. It is notable that there are positive and negative developments perceived by the protégé and the foci of mentoring tend to be the teaching of content rather than curriculum and pedagogy.

Examining Hong Kong students’ achievement goals and their relations with students’ perceived classroom environment and strategy use

This study examined Hong Kong students’ achievement goals and their relations with students’ perceived classroom environment and strategy use based on the multiple goal perspective of goal orientation theory. A total of 925 Grade 8 students from six secondary schools in Hong Kong voluntarily responded to a questionnaire that measured these three sets of variables. Consistent with previous studies using goal orientation theory, the findings of this study indicated that students’ perceived classroom environment was significantly related to their personal achievement goals and strategy use. While mastery goals were found to be the strongest predictor of strategy use, performance‐approach goals and perceived instrumentality also had positive relations with mastery goals and strategy use. Our findings suggest that mastery goals and performance goals were not contrasting goals as conceptualised in normative goal orientation theory. Students with high motivation for both types of goal were more adaptive in learning than were students who pursued a single type of goal. Moreover, the value of adding perceived instrumentality when studying students’ motivation should be emphasised. The implications of these findings for understanding Hong Kong students’ motivation, and for planning effective teaching instruction to enhance their motivation, are discussed.

Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Nonlinear Structural Equation Models with Ignorable Missing Data

The existing maximum likelihood theory and its computer software in structural equation modeling are established on the basis of linear relationships among latent variables with fully observed data. However, in social and behavioral sciences, nonlinear relationships among the latent variables are important for establishing more meaningful models and it is very common to encounter missing data. In this article, an EM type algorithm is developed for maximum likelihood estimation of a general nonlinear structural equation model with ignorable missing data, which are missing at random with an ignorable mechanism. To avoid computation of the complicated multiple integrals involved in the conditional expectations, the E-step is completed by a hybrid algorithm that combines the Gibbs sampler and the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm; while the M-step is completed efficiently by conditional maximization. Standard errors of the maximum likelihood estimates are obtained via Louis’s formula. The methodology is illustrated with results obtained from a simulation study and a real data set with rather complicated missing patterns and a large number of missing entries.

Environmental Education in Schools in Hong Kong

SUMMARY Since 1989 the Hong Kong government has taken an active interest in environmental education. The Guidelines on Environmental Education in Schools was issued in 1992 and both government departments and non‐governmental environmental organisations made efforts to promote the implementation of this curriculum change. However, there has developed a gap between the rhetoric of the ‘Guidelines’ and actual practice. Environmental emphasis has been primarily subject based and institutional commitment to environmental education in schools has been unsatisfactory. There are needs for policy reforms, teacher education curriculum and environmental education curriculum reforms and improved curriculum strategies such as resource provision and in‐service education.

Vice‐principalship: their responsibility roles and career aspirations

A discrepancy exists between the ideal and the actual roles played by vice‐principals (VPs). This gap between roles influences the level of job satisfaction, which, in turn, affects their desire for a principalship. This study used a questionnaire survey of about 300 Hong Kong VPs to examine the core responsibility dimensions pertaining to their work and how these contribute to the success of their schools. It also explores the deviation in the responsibilities undertaken by VPs with different school backgrounds and career orientations. The study identified seven core responsibility dimensions of VPs. The results show that the dimension leader and teacher growth and development is a predictor of a VP’s desire for principalship. Issues of attention included staff management and leader and teacher growth and development, as well as a call for better alignment between the actual and ideal responsibilities and roles of VPs.

Examining Hong Kong students’ motivational beliefs, strategy use and their relations with two relational factors in classrooms

This study examines Hong Kong students’ motivational beliefs, strategy use and their relations with two relational factors in classrooms – student learning community and teacher support and involvement. A total of 2206 Grade Four to Grade Nine students responded to a questionnaire that comprised three instruments, including two scales measuring student learning community and teacher support and involvement in classroom, respectively, and the Chinese version of the Motivated Strategy for Learning Questionnaire. Our findings suggest that the two relational factors could play an important role in facilitating students’ intrinsic value, self‐efficacy, and strategy use, reflecting some culture‐specific features of students’ self‐regulated learning in Hong Kong classrooms. The implications of these findings for understanding Hong Kong students’ motivational beliefs and strategy use are discussed. Finally, suggestions for future research are put forward.

Teacher Evaluation and Effectiveness in Hong Kong: Issues and Challenges

This article first provides an overview of teacher effectiveness and evaluation in Hong Kong. Several studies related to classroom environment and teacher behavior in selected subjects are referenced, as are recent studies of teachers’ instructional leadership. Finally, the preliminary use of the Revised Classroom Observation Instrument (RCOI) from the Louisiana School Effectiveness Study in three secondary schools is reported. The results from using the RCOI in Hong Kong indicate that some items may be irrelevant in the Hong Kong context (e.g., physical characteristics), while more items may be needed to reflect good teaching in Hong Kong (e.g., questioning skills). In addition, the potential use of teacher profiles to drive staff development and school improvement is explored.

Dilemmas of leading national curriculum reform in a global era A Chinese perspective

Since the mid-1980s, a global resurgence of large-scale reform in the field of education has been witnessed. Implementing these reforms has created many dilemmas for change leaders. Following a three-year qualitative research project, the present study explores the dilemmas leaders faced during the implementation of the national curriculum reform of senior secondary education in mainland China. The results indicate that those leading the changes of the curriculum reform were placed in a ‘trilemma’ arising from three conflicting cultural values, namely compliance culture, examination culture, and the new pedagogic culture advocated by the reform. These dilemmas stem from local adaptations in response to global reform trends. Finally, the implications for managing dilemmas in change leadership resulting from the present study are put forward.

School supervision and evaluation in China: the Shanghai perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss recent developments in school developmental supervisory evaluation in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai in the Chinese Mainland.Design/methodology/approach – The main research approach is qualitative, using documentary analysis and interviews of an inspector, principals and teachers from two primary schools.Findings – There were perceived positive and negative impacts of school supervision and evaluation.Originality/value – The paper highlights the implications for fostering a shared school‐government community of school supervision and evaluation, promoting a dynamic approach for addressing contextual differences as well as achieving better coherence among educational reform, supervision and evaluation policies.

Researching Environmental Education in the School Curriculum: An Introduction for Students and Teacher Researchers

Environmental education is becoming an increasingly important focus for educational research in a school context. This research reflects a number of contrasting environmental and educational research paradigms and these are evident in definitions of environmental education, curriculum objectives, curriculum content, and pedagogy. This review seeks to examine the nature of environmental paradigms and their relationships to environmental education in school curricula. Technical, interpretive and critical curriculum theories are discussed. Future research directions are indicated and suggestions are made for employing various forms of curriculum inquiry in the context of environmental education.