Rebecca Wing-yi Cheng

Academic Self-Concept and Learning Strategies: Direction of Effect on Student Academic Achievement.

This study examined the prediction of academic self-concept (English and Mathematics) and learning strategies (deep and surface), and their direction of effect, on academic achievement (English and Mathematics) of 8,354 students from 16 secondary schools in Hong Kong. Two competing models were tested to ascertain the direction of effect: Model A posited the effect of academic self-concept on learning strategies, whereas Model B posited the effect of learning strategies on academic self-concept. Structural equation modeling indicated that the data fit both models adequately, although Model B was found to have more applied heuristic value for practitioners than Model A because intervention is easier for learning strategies than self-concept. Further investigation also supported the reciprocal relationship between academic self-concept and academic achievement. The findings suggest that academic self-concept, learning strategies, and academic achievement have reciprocal relationships with each other.

Does big-fish–little-pond effect always exist? Investigation of goal orientations as moderators in the Hong Kong context

The big-fish–little-pond effect (BFLPE) posits that students with the same ability will have higher academic self-concepts when they are in low-ability classes than in high-ability classes. Our research puts the BFLPE under scrutiny by examining goal orientations as the moderators that may affect the size of the BFLPE. We collected data on mathematics self-concept, mathematics ability and goal orientation from 7334 Hong Kong junior secondary school students in 201 classes. We hypothesised that the BFLPE would be exacerbated for students who endorsed high extrinsic goals while the BFLPE would be attenuated for students who endorsed high intrinsic goals. However, the results did not fully support the hypothesis. We found that students who were highly motivated in general (both intrinsic and extrinsic) experienced stronger BFLPE. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Graphic Novel Comprehension Among Learners with Differential Cognitive Styles and Reading Abilities

ABSTRACT Learners with poor reading skills are less able to acquire knowledge through text. Graphic novels may enhance reading comprehension skills owing to fewer words, more pictures, and an engaging storyline. This study considered the reading skills of 188 Chinese–English bilingual undergraduates, comparing their reading comprehension performance after reading pure texts and graphic novels. Results showed that students exhibited greater reading comprehension performance after reading graphic novels regardless of their varying cognitive styles and prior English reading abilities. In addition, students who read the graphic novels expressed a greater interest in exploring the topic further, as indicated by the number of further references they selected. Taking all of the findings together, the present study demonstrates that presentation mode plays an important role in 2nd language reading comprehension development. Therefore, educators need a more systematic way of educating preschool through Grade 12 students for visual literacy training.

Motivation of Chinese learners: An integration of etic and emic approaches

This chapter reviews our research program on three important aspects of Chinese learner motivation: social goals, teacher controlling behaviors, and success/failure experiences. With an integration of etic and emic approaches, we found both cultural differences and similarities. On the one hand, we found that the same psychological construct might carry different meanings for Chinese and Western learners. On the other hand, we also found psychological processes that might be invariant across cultures. While social goals were considered as performance oriented and mostly maladaptive in the West, we found that the social goals of Chinese students were internally regulated obligation with adaptive effects on motivation. In a similar vein, we found that the same controlling behaviors of teachers carried different affective meanings for Chinese and American students. When compared to American students, Chinese students perceived teachers’ behaviors as less controlling, which in turn led to higher motivation in class. We also found that success and failure experiences carried different motivational implications for students with Chinese and Caucasian students. While Caucasian students were more motivated after success, Chinese students became more motivated after failure. Despite these cultural differences, we also saw cultural similarities. For example, disregarding culture, the teacher–student relationship played an important role in student motivation. In short, our findings highlight the importance of integrating the etic and emic approaches in cross-cultural investigation. It is important to tease out what is culturally universal and what is culturally unique in the psychological processes in motivation.

Formative Feedback as a Global Facilitator: Impact on Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation and Positive Affect

This chapter seeks to examine how formative feedback shapes students’ motivation and positive emotions in the higher education setting. We propose that formative feedback has a central role to play in fostering students’ motivation toward their learning, in that it does not only directly impact their motivation toward the courses where formative feedback practices are present, but also foster their overall motivational tendencies, through the promotion of positive emotions. Looking at a formative feedback project in a HK higher education institution, the current chapter reports a quasi-experiment to investigate the impacts of theoretically derived formative feedback practices on students’ extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and their positive emotions experienced during the courses in which the practices were put forth. The research’s findings suggested that formative feedback leads to increases in intrinsic motivation to attend the courses and students’ overall positive emotions. It also exerts a ‘protecting’ effect on their extrinsic motivation to attend the courses. Implications of these results are discussed. The impact of this study, especially on its contribution to scholarship of learning and teaching (SoLT), is discussed.

Lessons from Goal Orientation Theory: Expansion of Systemic Theory of Gifted Education.

In “Towards a systemic theory of gifted education” Ziegler and Phillipson propose a paradigm shift from mechanistic approach to systemic approach in gifted education. Such a proposal represents a shift of focus from the identification and placement of gifted students to the construction of individualized learning pathway in which students can develop towards excellence by the continual expansion of action repertoire through the interaction with their goals, subjective action space and the environment. I commend the attempt by Ziegler and Phillipson to discuss gifted education from a systemic and contextual perspective, which is inspiring in terms of theoretical advancement and practical reconsideration. Yet, the theory, in its current state, is more descriptive than explanatory. The concepts like action repertoire and subjective action space are abstract constructs which probably require more concrete, precise and measureable operational definitions that allow empirical validation. Ziegler and Phillipson mention that all components in the actiotope model should co-evolve and interact with one another at every step in the developmental process. While I acknowledge the importance of these dynamic–interactive processes in the development of exceptionality, I would love to understand more deeply on how these processes actually take place within a systemic framework. I think the theory will gain more explanatory and predictive power if the psychological mechanisms underlying the co-evolution and the interactions among components can be specified and explained. In this commentary, I limit my discussions on two components of the actiotope model, i.e., goals and environment, based on goal orientation theory (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). The purposes of my discussions are two-folded: First, to examine how the meanings of goals and goal structure in goal orientation theory can be incorporated into the conceptualization of goals and environment in the actiotope model; second, to identify some potential directions for research so that the actiotope model may be expanded and refined on the ground of empirical support. In the actiotope model, goals refer to the standards of performance within a particular domain. Once goals are achieved, there will be updates of goals so that