by Frank Wai-ming Tam. / Questionnaires in Chinese. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 192-210). / ACKNOWLEDGEMENT --- p.i / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.ii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.v / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.vii / ABSTRACT --- p.viii / CHAPTER / Chapter 1 --- INTRODUCTION / Chapter 1.1 --- Background --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Purpose of the Study --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3 --- Significance of the Study --- p.6 / Chapter 2 --- REVIEW OF LITERATURE / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2 --- School Organization --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- School Organization as a Social System --- p.9 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- The School Organization and its Environment --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Conceptualization of School Environment --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Elements of School Environment --- p.28 / Chapter 2.2.5 --- Conclusion --- p.65 / Chapter 2.3 --- Leadership Behavior --- p.67 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Definition of Leadership --- p.68 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Approaches to Leadership --- p.69 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Conceptualization of Leadership Behavior --- p.77 / Chapter 2.3.4 --- Conclusion --- p.80 / Chapter 2.4 --- Teacher Performance --- p.81 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Conceptualization of Teacher Efficacy --- p.82 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- Teacher's Use of Time --- p.84 / Chapter 2.4.3 --- School Environment and Teacher Performance --- p.85 / Chapter 2.4.4 --- Conclusion --- p.87 / Chapter 2.5 --- Student Performance --- p.89 / Chapter 2.5.1 --- Conceptualization of Learning Efficacy --- p.89 / Chapter 2.5.2 --- Academic Outcome --- p.90 / Chapter 2.5.3 --- School Environment and Student Performance --- p.91 / Chapter 2.5.4 --- Teacher Efficacy and Student Performance --- p.92 / Chapter 2.5.5 --- Conclusion --- p.94 / Chapter 2.6 --- Summary --- p.94 / Chapter 3 --- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.96 / Chapter 3.2 --- School Environment --- p.96 / Chapter 3.3 --- Leadership Behavior --- p.101 / Chapter 3.4 --- Teacher Performance --- p.102 / Chapter 3.5 --- Student Performance --- p.103 / Chapter 3.6 --- School Environment and Leadership Behavior --- p.103 / Chapter 3.7 --- School Environment and Teacher Performance --- p.104 / Chapter 3.8 --- School Environment and Student Performance --- p.106 / Chapter 3.9 --- Teacher Performance and Student Performance --- p.106 / Chapter 3.10 --- Summary --- p.107 / Chapter 3.11 --- Research Questions --- p.109 / Chapter 4 --- METHODOLOGY / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.110 / Chapter 4.2 --- Definitions --- p.110 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- School Environment --- p.110 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Principal's Leadership Behavior --- p.112 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Teacher Performance --- p.113 / Chapter 4.2.4 --- Student Performance --- p.113 / Chapter 4.2.5 --- School Contextual Factors --- p.114 / Chapter 4.3 --- Null Hypotheses --- p.115 / Chapter 4.4 --- Survey Instrument --- p.116 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- The Psychometric Properties of the Survey Instruments --- p.118 / Chapter 4.5 --- Sampling Method --- p.124 / Chapter 4.6 --- Statistical Tool --- p.126 / Chapter 4.6.1 --- The Multi-level Model --- p.127 / Chapter 4.7 --- Limitations of the Study --- p.132 / Chapter 5 --- RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.134 / Chapter 5.2 --- Descriptive Statistics --- p.134 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Contextual Information About the Schools --- p.135 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Demographic Information of Teachers and Students --- p.136 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Descriptive Statistics of the Variables and Scales --- p.139 / Chapter 5.2.4 --- Summary --- p.142 / Chapter 5.3 --- Characteristics of School Environment --- p.144 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Correlations among Environment Variables --- p.144 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Relationship between School Environment and School Context at the School Level --- p.149 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Summary --- p.154 / Chapter 5.4 --- Relationship between Teacher Performance and Student Performance at the School Level --- p.155 / Chapter 5.5 --- School Environment and Teacher Performance --- p.157 / Chapter 5.5.1 --- Multi-level Analysis of Teacher Performance --- p.157 / Chapter 5.5.2 --- Multi-level Analysis of School Environment and Teacher Performance --- p.159 / Chapter 5.5.3 --- Summary --- p.162 / Chapter 5.6 --- School Environment and Student Performance --- p.164 / Chapter 5.6.1 --- Multi-level Analysis of Student Performance --- p.164 / Chapter 5.6.2 --- Multi-level Analysis of School Environment and Student Performance --- p.166 / Chapter 5.6.3 --- Multi-level Analysis of School Environment and Student Performance by Controlling Personal Factors --- p.170 / Chapter 5.6.4 --- Summary --- p.181 / Chapter 6. --- CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS / Chapter 6.1 --- Conclusions --- p.183 / Chapter 6.2 --- Implications --- p.186 / BIBLOGRAPHY --- p.192 / APPENDICES / Chapter A. --- Survey Instrument --- p.211 / Chapter B. --- Reliability and Factor Analysis of Scales --- p.218

Despite the widespread adoption of task-based language teaching in English as a foreign/second language (EF/SL), task difficulty has continued to be a controversial issue in task-based assessment. This research explores how feasible it is to implement a task-based approach to testing within the existing Chinese National English Curriculum (CNEC). The central problem that the study has addressed is how task difficulty can be established through the use of a theoretically-motivated analytic scheme, grounded in contemporary task research. The scheme needs to be able to take a test-task as input, and facilitate rating of the test task on a number of dimensions. / Initially, the scheme proposed by Norris Brown, Hudson, and Yoshioka (1998) was explored for validity and practicality in the Chinese context. Since this scheme did not work very effectively, a new analytic scheme for curriculum-based test-tasks was developed through a series of developmental cycles. At the end of this process, an Input-Processing-Output (IPO) task difficulty matrix was established which provided reliable estimates of rated test-task difficulty at both global and analytic levels. The IPO task difficulty matrix designed and used in the series of studies appears to have adequately distinguished between three levels of difficulty of a CNEC theme. / The research establishes (1) that the difficulty of the tasks can be used to sequence effectively both for testing and for teaching; (2) the methods by which the principles of task selection and task difficulty can be used with a wider range of test generators and test users, and (3) that rated task difficulty connects with objective measures of performance as well as conventional ratings of performance. / The scheme provides a practical tool, but also a theoretical perspective on how tasks themselves can be analyzed effectively. The main developmental cycles required experienced and trained ELT professionals to use the analytic rating scheme. A later phase employed less experienced and trained teachers and explored how they could be trained to use the rating scheme. This phase established that the scheme can be used in "non-expert" English language teaching (ELT) situations, provided that there is adequate training. Validity was explored through the use of a range of discourse analysis measures of the writing performance of a number of school-based EFL learners in China. / Luo, Shaoqian. / "October 2007." / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-08, Section: A, page: 3132. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 339-367). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

No description available.

Photocopy of typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

This is a study of adolescent students talking in the classroom. It combines a sociocultural approach to learning with an ethnomethodological view of talk as social action and examines how young adolescents accomplish, in class, the work of 'being students'. Sociocultural theory takes the view that school is one of the contexts in which young people grow into mature social, cultural and institutional practices, through social interaction with 'expert' others. / thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2000.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Psychology, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

Not available / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

No description available.