published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

稿本(據電腦打印本複印) / Thesis (M.A.)--香港中文大學. / Gao ben (ju dian nao da yin ben fu yin) / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-61) / Thesis (M.A.)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue. / Chapter 第一章： --- 引言 / Chapter 第一節 --- 問題的背景 --- p.1 / Chapter 第二節 --- 研究目的 --- p.3 / Chapter 第三節 --- 研究的意義 --- p.4 / Chapter 第二章： --- 文獻探討 / Chapter 第一節 --- 有關組織投入的各派學說 --- p.5 / Chapter 第二節 --- 影響組織投入的因素 --- p.7 / Chapter 第三節 --- 教師的組織投入對其出席行為的影響 --- p.8 / Chapter 第四節 --- 教師的組織投入對準時到校及自願留校的影響 --- p.10 / Chapter 第五節 --- 教師的組織投入對其留任意願及留任行為的影響 --- p.11 / Chapter 第六節 --- 教師的工作滿足感及組織投入 --- p.13 / Chapter 第三章： --- 研究方法 / Chapter 第一節 --- 假設與定義 --- p.14 / Chapter 第二節 --- 研究工具 --- p.17 / Chapter 第三節 --- 取樣、資料捜集及分析 --- p.19 / Chapter 第四節 --- 研究的限制 --- p.20 / Chapter 第四章： --- 研究結果分析 / Chapter 第一節 --- 辦學園體的背景及屬下中學資料 --- p.21 / Chapter 第二節 --- 教師的背景 --- p.28 / Chapter 第三節 --- 教師對學校及工作的態度 --- p.36 / Chapter 第四節 --- 教師的行為和意向 --- p.40 / Chapter 第五節 --- 各统計假設的檢驗 --- p.43 / Chapter 第五章： --- 討論、總結及建議 / Chapter 第一節 --- 討論 --- p.45 / Chapter 第二節 --- 總結 --- p.48 / Chapter 第三節 --- 建議 --- p.51 / 參考書目錄 / Chapter 一. --- 中文參考書目 --- p.53 / Chapter 二. --- 英文參考書目 --- p.54 / 附錄 / Chapter 一. --- 中學教師對學校的觀感及工作意向問卷 --- p.62 / Chapter 甲部： --- 教師個人資料 / Chapter 乙部： --- 教師對學校的觀感及工意向 / Chapter 二. --- 硏究生致各位回答問卷教師函件 --- p.65 / Chapter 三. --- 訪問校長問卷 --- p.66 / Chapter 四. --- 教職申請表 --- p.67 / Chapter 五. --- 遴選教師評分表 --- p.69 / Chapter 六. --- 出席離校紀錄簽到表 --- p.70 / Chapter 七. --- 教師評核表（初稿） --- p.71 / Chapter 八. --- 教師升级申請辦法 --- p.73 / 撮要 / 英譯本 --- p.74

For data collection, the researcher was attached to three Hong Kong secondary schools with average academic and extra-curricular activity performances for three months each during the past two years. Having got familiarized with the teachers and students through joining various formal and informal school activities, in the last month of his attachment, the researcher invited each teacher to be interviewed on the topic of extra-curricular activities and to be tape-recorded. In the end, 122 teachers agreed to be the participants in the interviews. The interview was conducted in a semi-structured way, in which the teacher first recounted and commented on his/her experience and impression of extra-curricular activities. The researcher then asked for clarifications and further exploration of his/her own conception, with the help of some "situation cards". In the whole interview process, the researcher adopted a "non judgmental" attitude towards the definition of "extra-curricular activities", only asking the interviewee questions on the clarity and consistency of his/her conception. Each interview lasted for about an hour. After the interviews, the recordings were converted into written scripts. Based on the interview process and scripts, the researcher sorted out various main themes and key words and proceeded with data analysis. After three stages of back-and-forth collation and with the number of cases reduced to forty, finally seven conceptions of extra-curricular activities have been constructed: Accountability, Attachment, Mould, Experience, Personal growth, Liberation, and Balance. The researcher has depicted the specific horizon, concepts and the relationship among concepts, and also compared and contrasted the distinctive features of each conception. / There are multifarious extra-curricular activities in Hong Kong secondary schools. Nearly every teacher participates in the activities. Different teachers infuse extra-curricular activities with diverse meanings, and actualize different modes of school education. This study aims at exploring Hong Kong secondary school teachers' conceptions of extra-curricular activities. It collates individual cases into different collective clusters, depicting each conception of extra-curricular activities, and the relationship between the concepts. / This thesis attempts to relate and contrast the features of the seven conceptions of extra-curricular activities and the four main questions generated from the theories about valuation in curriculum, thus showing that the conceptions of Accountability, Attachment and Mould are based on "group" values, which set an instrumental field for "learning". Conceptions of Personal growth, Experience and Liberation refer to "individual", tending to adopt "individual as a unit" and "intrinsic values" as the learning field. The conception Balance is in-between the two. It tries to balance the tension between individual and social instruments, as well as intrinsic and extrinsic values. Taking a step further, this thesis also argues that to improve the quality of school education, each teacher has to decide on a definition and orientation of the curriculum which is in line with his/her own extra-curricular activity conception. Merely claiming that "Extra-curricular activity is part of the curriculum" is not necessarily conducive to improving education quality. Finally, the findings also point to the need to explore how we can provide teachers with a cultivating environment and quality facilitators for helping them clarify, improve and transform their conceptions of extra-curricular activities in the course of learning. This will be a key concern for the further development of teacher education. / 周昭和. / 呈交日期: 2006年4月. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2006. / 參考文獻(p. 324-344). / Cheng jiao ri qi: 2006 nian 4 yue. / Adviser: Ngai-ying Wong. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4078. / 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. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2006. / Can kao wen xian (p. 324-344). / Zhou Zhaohe.

published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

The policy on “Teaching English through English” has been proposed by the Hong Kong Government for decades. However, teachers find it difficult to follow the policy and the use of Cantonese is necessary due to the realistic need of students. The present study aims to investigate the patterns and functions of the use of Cantonese in English lessons, and to examine English teachers’ and students’ views towards the use of Cantonese in English classroom. This study involved three S4 teachers and twelve students from their classes. Data was collected through audio recording of lessons and interviews with teacher and student participants. The results show that Cantonese was widely used for teaching vocabulary, explaining relatively complicated tasks and classroom management. Teachers seldom reverted to the target language once they have switched to Cantonese. Both the teacher and student participants believed that the use of Cantonese could facilitate the teaching and learning of grammar and vocabulary. Also, it was effective in maintaining classroom discipline, enhancing communication within the classroom, and creating a conducive learning environment. Despite the perceived pedagogical value of Cantonese in English classroom, findings suggest that teachers tended to use Cantonese as a time-saving device rather than a facilitative teaching tool, and the potential pedagogical functions of using Cantonese in English classroom were not fully utilized because of the teachers’ lack of strategic planning when using it. It is important for English teachers to reflect on their language choice, and to develop an awareness of using Cantonese effectively to facilitate students’ learning of English. / published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

The ultimate goal of schooling is to provide quality education. In order to enhance the quality of the teaching profession, the Education Bureau mandated all aided schools to establish the school-based teacher appraisal system. To date, the policy has been implemented for a few years. This study attempts to investigate how teachers participate in the school-based appraisal system and analyze its relation to the effectiveness of the system. Moreover, the researcher tries to examine the factors affecting teacher participation in the appraisal and investigate the reasons behind their actions. The research method involves case studies of school-based teacher appraisal in two aided primary schools in Hong Kong. Teacher participation is high in one case while it is low in another case. The methods adopted include documentary analysis, interviews and observations. The evaluation model of Stake (1967), which compares the intention and reality of the policy, is also employed to analyze the actual operation. Findings reveal that teacher participation is a crucial factor to the effectiveness of the school-based appraisal systems. Teacher participation in the policy formulation and implementation stages directly affects the effectiveness of the policy. Extensive teacher participation in establishing the appraisal policy is found to have the following benefits, i.e. increasing the intelligence for decision-making, leading to better and effective implementation of the policy, increasing the acceptance of and ownership of the policy. In the policy implementation stage, the participation level of the appraisers and appraisees is found to be correlated and interdependent. The participation of both sides will affect whether the policy is implemented as scheduled and ultimately to what extent the policy will achieve the intended outcomes. Factors affecting teacher participation in the appraisal can be categorized into four levels, namely, the individual level, the policy level, the organizational level and the societal level. These factors are interrelated and have an effect on one another. The variation in the influence of these factors affecting participation may depend on different people and different situations. Apart from the fact that individual attitude would affect one’s degree of participation in the appraisal, the elements or components of the policy, the school culture and the Chinese culture would also affect the way in which teachers participate in the appraisal activities. Findings of the two case schools demonstrate that the developmental purpose and the administrative purpose seem to be incompatible within one appraisal system in the Hong Kong context, so the two purposes should be kept separate. The study also confirms that the school culture characterized by trust, collaboration, and valuing teacher growth can encourage the stakeholders to participate in appraisal more actively. On the other hand, the Chinese cultural values, i.e. face (mainzi), relation (guanxi) and favor (renqing), seem to be incompatible with the principles of the school-based appraisal systems as requested by the government, i.e. open, fair and transparent, and thus obstruct teacher participation in appraisal. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Education

This research aimed to investigate whether or not intellectual styles are malleable and to study the effects of intellectual styles on learning achievement. These aims were achieved through investigating whether or not teachers’ teaching behavior could lead students to change their intellectual styles in learning, and examining the relationship between students’ intellectual styles and learning achievement. Surveys and an experiment were employed in this research. The surveys consisted of two pilot studies (Study 1 and Study 2), while the experiment formed the main study (Study 3). The pilot studies were performed to evaluate the two inventories (the Questionnaire for Teacher Interaction and the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised) used in the main study, and to investigate the relationship between thinking styles and preferred teacher teaching behavior among students and teachers. Two hundred and forty-seven students and 94 teachers were recruited in Studies 1 and 2, respectively. Findings in these two pilot studies verified that the two inventories were applicable to Chinese secondary school teachers and students. These two studies also revealed that preferred teacher teaching behavior and thinking styles of students and teachers were related. In particular, students and teachers with a dominant preference for Type I thinking styles preferred student-centered teaching behavior to teacher-centered teaching behavior. Moreover, they preferred a wider range of teaching behavior than did the students and teachers with a dominant preference for Type II thinking styles. Also, in the teacher sample, the relationship between thinking styles and preferred teaching behavior exhibited a clearer pattern than in the student sample. The experiment was an eight-month instructional research. Five experimental classes were formed, with five teachers and 139 students as participants. Each teacher taught one class, after being trained to adopt only one type of teaching behavior to teach and to interact with students. Dominant, oppositional, and submissive teaching behaviors were the respective types adopted for three of the classes. The remaining two classes were taught by teachers adopting cooperative teaching behavior. Hence, the experiment adopted a 2 (time) × 5 (learning environment) repeated-measures design. Students’ thinking styles were measured by the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised before and after the experiment. Also, an investigation of student learning achievement was conducted after classroom instruction. The results showed that students’ thinking styles changed in all of the five experimental classes, with teachers’ teaching behavior in teaching being the main factor contributing to the changes. Moreover, teacher-centered and student-centered teaching behaviors led to student thinking style changes along different directions. Teacher-centered teaching behavior tended to cause student thinking style changes that diverged from the teachers’ own preferred thinking styles, while student-centered teaching behavior tended to shift students’ thinking styles in a direction towards their teachers’ preferred thinking styles. Furthermore, students’ thinking styles and their learning achievement were related. Specifically, Type II styles and the internal style tended to positively predict student learning achievement, while Type I styles and the external style tended to negatively predict learning achievement. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are also discussed. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Education

Instructional congruence (IC) is a conceptual framework which emphasizes that the linguistic and cultural problems of ethnic minority students are to be addressed in order to enhance their learning. IC has been developed and implemented during the most recent two decades, and adopted and recognized for its improvement on student motivation and academic performance in many countries. In Hong Kong, there are designated schools which specifically cater to ethnic minority students. In this study, three science teachers in a designated school have been evaluated on their awareness of IC in teaching ethnic minority students. However, none of the three teachers have received any professional training on teaching ethnic minority students. Through classroom observations and interviews with teacher-respondents, the results show that they have scant knowledge on catering to the different linguistics and culturally diversified problems of ethnic minority students. Although one of the teachers has some knowledge which allowed the consideration of student literacy development and application of cultural relevance in the instructional curriculum, his practices are not systematic and effective, which means that they fall far from the proposed IC practices. Educators and policymakers are strongly recommended to promote and adopt the IC framework in Hong Kong. If the implementation of IC in Hong Kong as a means to address the needs of ethnic minority students is familiarized and acknowledged, IC would very likely improve their academic achievements and provide them with equal opportunities in education. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education