Kerry J. Kennedy

Assessment for student improvement: understanding Hong Kong teachers’ conceptions and practices of assessment

Hong Kong is seeking to increase the use of ‘assessment for learning’ rather than rely on ‘assessment of learning’ through summative examinations. Nearly 300 teachers from 14 primary and secondary schools answered a Chinese translation of the Teachers’ Conceptions of Assessment inventory and a new Practices of Assessment Inventory. Structural equation modelling showed that there was clear alignment between conceptions and practices. Further, there were significant differences in the conceptions of assessment held by Hong Kong teachers as compared to New Zealand and Queensland teachers. This sample of Hong Kong teachers strongly associated (r=.91) using assessment to improve teaching and learning with making students accountable through assessment, which, in turn, led to a strong use of examination preparation practices (β=.43). Hong Kong teachers believed learning outcomes were improved by using assessments to make students accountable and by preparing them for examinations. These results suggest that broader Chinese cultural norms concerning examinations are part of school culture and may provide barriers for the assessment reform agenda in Hong Kong and other Confucian societies.

Constructing Citizenship: Comparing the Views of Students in Australia, Hong Kong, and the United States

Young citizens growing up in different societies experience multiple socialization processes that help to shape their values and attitudes toward the political life of their societies. Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell (1996, 47) have pointed out that “each community’s political culture exists uniquely in its own time and place. The attitudes and beliefs of its citizens are shaped by their personal experiences.” Yet across countries, common patterns of citizenship values have been identified. Dian Kiwan (2005, 38) has identified five broad conceptions of citizenship: “moral, legal, identity-based, participatory and cosmopolitan.” Michael Walzer (1994) distinguished between “thin” and “thick” conceptions of citizenship, with thin conceptions roughly equivalent to Kiwan’s moral and legal categories and thick conceptions covering the other three categories. Although Diemut Bubeck (1995) questioned the adequacy of Walzer’s conceptions, claiming that some conceptions of citizenship have both thin and thick components, Walzer’s categorization, nevertheless, provides a useful way of understanding the way citizens across societies view their political roles. Thin conceptions of citizenship can be characterized as rights based, concerned with status in the political community and providing a somewhat passive role for citizens, such as obeying laws and voting periodically. Thick conceptions of citizenship, however, have much higher expectations of citizens in terms of their virtues, their expected participation, and their performance in the community. Other writers on citizenship have expressed similar views, especially in relation to democratic citizenship (Barber 1984; Heater 2004). For example, in his historical review of citizenship, Heater showed that citizenship developed from formal, legal, and rights-based emphases to multiple and global citizenship, requiring commitments beyond state-defined duties and responsibilities. Terence McLaughlin’s (1992) notion of minimal and maximal citizenship also identifies four sets of thin and thick features in various areas of citizenship, that is, form and substance in citizenship identity; private and public in citizenship virtues; passive and active in political involvement; and closed and open in social prerequisites, with the former as a thin feature of citizenship and the latter as thick in the four respective citizenship areas.

STUDENT CONSTRUCTIONS OF ‘ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP’: WHAT DOES PARTICIPATION MEAN TO STUDENTS?

ABSTRACT ‘Active citizenship’ is currently a popular term in citizenship education policy discourse. Despite this policy interest, there is no agreement about the meaning of ‘active citizenship’. This article draws on data from the IEA Civic Education Study to explore how students themselves construct ‘active citizenship’. The results show that students have quite sophisticated conceptions of citizenship responsibilities although their attitudes are gendered. They seem committed to political obligations rather than social obligations and they do not seem inclined to take advantage of their political rights or become involved in protest activities of any kind.

Asian Perspectives on Citizenship Education in Review: Postcolonial Constructions or Precolonial Values?

There is an important sense in which trying to reduce the studies in this book to a set of common themes or generalisations cannot do justice to the complexity and richness of the individual studies. Yet as Stein (2002), writing about ‘global cinema’, has recently pointed out, it is ‘vitally important to develop critical tools that can read films from a transnational perspective’. There is little doubt, based on the preceding studies in this book, that citizenship education can also be regarded as transnational in character even though, like film, it is largely constructed within the boundaries of individual nation-states. This way of viewing citizenship education suggests that we need to develop a way of talking about and understanding it in the richness of its local contexts while also recognizing its commonalities, shared values and aspirations in developing an intelligent citizenry.

Higher Education Governance as a Key Policy Issue in the 21st Century

Governance is currently a key issue not only for higher education institutions but for society as a whole. The way organizations are managed, the directions they take and the values they hold send clear signals about their role and functions in society. For this reason, the governance structures of universities were unquestioned for most of the twentieth century. Yet in the final decades of that century significant changes were starting to be felt. The most important of these changes related to the way universities were viewed by governments. In particular, the role of universities in contributing to national economies was being recognized. Greater accountability and more intense scrutiny from the outside meant that the traditional values of universities were being challenged. The task of universities, and for society as a whole, is to develop strategies that will retain the best of what universities have traditionally stood for while responding positively to new pressures and priorities. This paper advances the concept of ‘deliberative partnerships’ as one way to reconstruct university governance in a positive way for the future. Key Words: accountability, education policy, higher education, management, organizational efficiency, public sector, university governance

The Policy Context of Curriculum Reform in Australia in the 1980s

This paper reviews the policy context that has sought to shape the curriculum of Australian schools during the 1980s. Three elements which have shaped that context are identified: concern with the economy, concern with the cost of education and the integration of education and youth policies. In theoretical terms, the policy context is firmly located in instrumentalist thinking and the curriculum of schools has become very much a public policy issue. Education systems seem to have responded to this context by moving towards a full secondary education for all students, stressing the need for balance and coherence in the curriculum, introducing new curriculum options and giving more credence to the vocational orientation of students. There have been no explicit attempts to move towards an overly vocational curriculum. Two basic problems remain: the extent to which current policy priorities will cater specifically for disadvantaged groups and the willingness of teachers to move curriculum practice in the directions being advocated by policy makers.

Teacher educators’ pedagogical principles and practices: Hong Kong perspectives

While the teaching quality agenda of the 1990s, including auditing procedures, funding initiatives, and the development of academic and staff development units, has had its earliest and strongest expression in the United Kingdom and Australia, it has also had a significant impact on higher education in Hong Kong. The focus on quality has been accompanied by extensive research and theorising about the nature of good teaching and the qualities of good teachers. Most of this work has emerged from western studies across a range of disciplines. A study of teaching practices employed by Hong Kong academics with specific expertise in education supports the applicability of western conceptualisations generated through multi-disciplinary studies; these academics’ practices are aligned with ‘good teaching’, but highlight factors not often noted in previous studies, namely the conscious application of educational theory and the role of professional commitment and passion in good teaching.

Creation of culturally responsive classrooms: teachers’ conceptualization of a new rationale for cultural responsiveness and management of diversity in Hong Kong secondary schools

Presently, there are a growing number of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong schools. This article examines teachers’ views of the cross-cultural experience of ethnic minority students, their influence on the performance of these students, and how the diverse learning needs of these students are being addressed. Qualitative data were collected from semi-structured interviews with 32 teachers from three secondary schools. This study shows that teachers struggle to conceptualize a new rationale for responding to cultural diversity. They develop a sense of intercultural sensitivity, promote cultural responsiveness to diversity, and strengthen the home–school connection. This article argues that, like students, teachers simultaneously engage in a cross-cultural process through which they learn the culture of ethnic minority students, relearn their own culture and reexamine the relevant rationale underlying cultural responsiveness. Finally, a framework for the creation of culturally responsive classrooms, based upon the teachers’ new rationale of cultural responsiveness, is proposed.

Academic Attribution of Secondary Students: Gender, Year Level and Achievement Level.

This study is concerned with the attribution of secondary students. Causal interpretations for academic success and failure were analysed to investigate the effect of gender, year level and achievement level on students’ academic attributions in Hong Kong, a Confucian Heritage Culture. The sample for the study comprised 14,846 students currently enrolled in Secondary 1 to Secondary 6 in Hong Kong. Multivariate analyses of variance found significant gender differences in ascriptions to ability, effort and strategy use reasons for school performance of students who shared a common cultural background. These effects remained after controlling for achievement and year levels. Chinese females in this sample were more inclined than Chinese males to explain their academic failure in terms of their lack of ability and strategy use. Females were also more likely to explain their academic success in terms of their effort or strategy use. Nevertheless, the study found secondary students of both genders and across all achievement and year levels, consistently ascribed to effort as the most important reason for academic outcomes. Secondary 4 students were significantly more inclined than students of lower levels to attribute their academic outcomes to effort and strategy use. Cultural influences are discussed in interpreting the findings.

The Use of Help-Seeking by Chinese Secondary School Students: Challenging the Myth of ‘the Chinese Learner’

Abstract This article aims to investigate reasons underpinning academic help-seeking behaviours of Chinese students in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Data were collected from 23,563 secondary students. The study found significant differences both in attitudes and reported behaviour among secondary school students from the three locations, however, the effect sizes were all very small. Importantly, it was found that no matter which location, students considered grade enhancement to be the least important benefit of help-seeking. Rather, the most important benefit was that help-seeking enabled them to solve their learning difficulties or to solve their learning problems. The study also found that losing face was the last deterrent for the students not to seek help. Instead, Chinese secondary school students refrained from seeking help because they were afraid to disturb others in the act of help-seeking. In addition, a high proportion of students reported seeking help in the past two months in order to get advice on problem-solving approaches. Comparatively, a much smaller proportion of students reported seeking help in the last two months in order to improve on their grades. These results were discussed in light of the previous images of Chinese students.Abstract This article aims to investigate reasons underpinning academic help-seeking behaviours of Chinese students in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Data were collected from 23,563 secondary students. The study found significant differences both in attitudes and reported behaviour among secondary school students from the three locations, however, the effect sizes were all very small. Importantly, it was found that no matter which location, students considered grade enhancement to be the least important benefit of help-seeking. Rather, the most important benefit was that help-seeking enabled them to solve their learning difficulties or to solve their learning problems. The study also found that losing face was the last deterrent for the students not to seek help. Instead, Chinese secondary school students refrained from seeking help because they were afraid to disturb others in the act of help-seeking. In addition, a high proportion of students reported seeking help in the past two months in order to get ad...