published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The implementation of inclusive education has begun in Hong Kong for over a decade. This research is a mixed methods research consisting of two related studies that examine support for students with special educational needs (SEN) in Hong Kong. The first study explored the effectiveness of inclusive and segregated education in supporting students with intellectual disabilities (IDs). A total of 42 students (19 female and 23 male) attending primary 4 to primary 6 and diagnosed as having mild grade ID participated in this study. Eighteen of them (8 female and 10 male) were from 16 ordinary schools and 24 (11 female and 13 male) were from 3 special schools designed for students with mild grade ID. The two groups were compared based on academic achievement, socio-emotional functioning and self-perception of acceptance, popularity among peers, and intellectual and school status. The results indicated that students in ordinary schools outperformed their counterparts in academic achievement. However, students in special schools were found to have better peer relationships and a lower level of emotional distress in addition to exhibiting more helpful behavior. Their self-perception was also more positive. The second study was conducted to investigate the contextual factors that could have affected the academic achievement, socio-emotional functioning, and self-perception of the two groups of students. To this end, a total of 3 parents, 8 school personnel and 3 students from 2 ordinary schools and 2 special schools were interviewed and 2 classroom observations were conducted. Special schools were found to have lower academic demand. They adopted a functional curriculum designed to strengthen the students’ practical and generic skills and offered various support programs to increase confidence and develop positive attitudes. Small class sizes allowed teachers to use individualized, interactive, and experiential strategies that catered to the students’ individual learning styles and socio-emotional needs. Close home-school collaboration was also maintained. In contrast, ordinary schools followed a standard mainstream curriculum and assessment for all with both teachers and parents exhibiting higher expectations of the students that resulted in more active involvement in the students’ academic learning. These collective factors might have contributed to the better academic achievement of SEN students in ordinary schools and the more positive socio-emotional functioning and self-perception of their counterparts in special schools. The implications of this research for policy makers tasked with the development of and resource allocation for the support system for SEN students, in addition to its effects among practitioners who wish to strengthen current practices and support for SEN students, are discussed. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Education

Youth need guidance to maximize their potentials, develop in a sound and well-rounded way, and steer clear of trouble. This is especially so nowadays, due to the complexity of today’s world as well as the greater exposure to a variety of influences that advances in communications technology have brought with them. However, familial trends are such that less rather than more guidance might be available through the home or extended family today. Schools have taken on the brunt of providing this guidance through a variety of guidance programs. One way a particular secondary school in Hong Kong provides this guidance is by instituting a school-wide mentoring program, providing each student with a teacher designated as his personal mentor. While it is true that teachers in Hong Kong have always understood themselves as having a guidance role especially as class tutors for their own classes, and it is also true that mentoring has already been widely used in a variety of youth settings to provide guidance, efforts to combine the two and use teachers as mentors in a formal mentoring program for all the students in the school are less common but also seem to be on the rise. At any rate, research evidence for such programs is lacking and in the context of Hong Kong, virtually non-existent. Questions thus arise as to whether such school-wide, school-based mentoring programs using teachers can actually be successfully put in place; whether they actually have merit when put in place; and if they do have benefits, what kind and what extent of benefits actually accrue, and how might they be maximized. This case study is an attempt to address the above questions by seeking a deeper understanding of the mentoring program in the particular school. Specifically, it seeks first to clarify what the actual implementation of the mentoring program in the school looks like. Secondly, it seeks to consider how the program can be made more effective by identifying factors that affect the outcomes of such mentoring as well as by uncovering points of leverage specific to the case school. The research context of this study is in the domain of mentoring literature. At the same time, perspectives from the field of guidance in schools are also given due consideration. As a case study, a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods are used alongside each other and these include in-depth interviews with students and teachers and a survey of the student population of the school at large. The results show that though the actual implementation may not be as smooth as theorized, the program has already been reaping benefits. The program is also likely to reap even greater benefits if steps are taken to address issues such as clarity of objectives and commitment of staff and if it incorporates certain features of other well-run mentoring programs such as the provision of ongoing training, and program activities to support the development of the mentoring relationship. The results also confirm that factors commonly expected to be moderators of mentoring effectiveness such as the intensity and quality of the mentor-mentee relationship were indeed also moderators in the school’s program and that factors more specific to the program’s context such as goal-setting and whether the personal tutor was also the class tutor also had significant effects. It further suggested that mentoring the mentors could also be a key part of the equation in the bid to enhance program effectiveness. Overall, while acknowledging several areas requiring further research, the findings of the study do endorse the case school’s model of a teacher-led school-wide mentoring program for students as an effective guidance strategy which fits well into a whole-school approach to guidance. The study has also been a significant step towards understanding the inner workings and potential difficulties in implementing such mentoring programs and can thus serve as a guide to schools wishing to venture into this area and can contribute to the base of literature regarding such mentoring programs. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Social Network Sites (SNSs) are increasingly influencing the academic and industry researchers intrigued by their affordances and settings. Although SNS has been claimed that it occupied too much of peoples’ daily lives by many researchers and scientists, the fact also demonstrates the growing use of SNS in education area, which proved that SNS has its unique pedagogical significance and potential to foster students’ learning experience. Used and promoted in many countries around the world, SNS is now not only serving as a social network environment (SNE) for people to communicate, but also a platform for academic information exchange and sharing in various contexts. This study aimed at exploring the differences between western and Chinese localised SNS, evaluating the practicability of SNS use in China’s education, and identifying certain problems in the implementation. Referenced by the literature on SNS experiment in teaching, cultural influence and pedagogy value, Chinese SNS would be analysed from comprehensive perspectives. This study combined two parts, one was the comparison study for four selected SNSs from China and foreign countries, the other was the research experiment conducted with a class of 17 students enrolling in an English educational institution in Chinese mainland, where the students took a spoken English course which lasted for one and a half month. The selected SNSs used in the experiment were implemented to facilitate the teaching and support designed learning process that requires students to explore the use of SNS and motivate them to interact more with peers and teacher off-class while completing the course objectives. Date collection and analysis conducted mixed methods in this research, the data of this research were collected by different levels of participants’ interviews, observations, recordings and questionnaires that covers the perceptions for research topic, everyday use of SNSs, taken-forgranted interactions and communication among teacher and students in the learning and teaching process. This research not only justify the practicability of SNS use in China’s education, it also revealed various functions that SNSs could provide in China’s education. In terms of functionality, it could serves as a platform for (a) facilitating presentation and demonstration, (b) developing personal learning record and portfolios, (c) distributing and sharing resources, (d) promoting student-teacher offline interaction, (e) enabling free comment and feedbacks. Theoretical research would be conducted and practical implementation would also be introduced. Through the experiment, the research would make the best of SNSs in education, which further discuss the special characteristics of Chinese localised SNSs and broaden the understanding of using SNS in education. Pedagogical principles are also discussed. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

The sub-degree sector is expanding rapidly after the announcement of the Policy Address in 2000 by the former Chief Executive Mr. Tung Chee-hwa. Sub-degree is introduced in Hong Kong in order to build a diversified and flexible higher education system. Since then more and higher education institutions offer self-financing sub-degree programmes. It seems that sub-degree programmes are oversupplied in the market; and there is uncertainty in articulation and employment of the sub-degree graduates. This issue has stirred up much controversy among the community and causes for our greatest concern. In recent years, the number of full-time accredited self-financing local 4-year degree programmes offered by private institutions grows tremendously. With the recent growth of this new qualification, the average intakes of sub-degree programmes would somewhat be affected. HKU SPACE Community College has been selected as a case study of this research. Students and staff in the Community College have been surveyed and interviewed. The study examines their views on the sub-degree programmes offered by the community colleges and the self-financing local 4-year degree programmes offered by the private institutions. From the findings of the research, it is evident that sub-degree is a valuable educational attainment in term of articulation and employment; and sub-degrees still have the development potential and will not be replaced by the self-financing local 4-year degrees offered by the private institutions. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / History / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education