Forgiveness intervention research has previously been conducted mostly with participants from Western cultural settings. The application of forgiveness in education has also been limited, especially forgiveness as a psychosocial or a moral education programme in a school setting. Further, few studies have included cultural values in forgiveness intervention programmes. To address this research gap, the current study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of two forgiveness education programmes as class guidance programmes with Hong Kong Chinese youth; one programme adopted an Enright process-based model, and the other was based on Chinese Confucian values. The participants included boys (n=114) and girls (n=168) aged 16-18 from two schools. To examine the programmes’ effectiveness, a quasi-experimental design including both pre-test and post-test was adopted, with two experimental groups (i.e., Enright group and Chinese-value group) and one control group. A qualitative approach, using focus-group and individual interviews, was also utilized for triangulation and further examination of participants’ perceptions of the process of forgiveness and the effects of the forgiveness programmes. The findings revealed that both programmes had positive effects on the participants’ forgiveness attitudes, as measured by the Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI), the Decisional Forgiveness Scale (DFS), the Emotional Forgiveness Scale (EFS), and Forgiveness Self-Efficacy (FSE). Such effects were more prominent in the Enright group than in the Chinese-value group, with improvement in three specific areas: affect and behaviour towards offenders, decisional and emotional forgiveness, and forgiveness self-efficacy. Further analysis revealed that these significant effects were found mainly in participants who indicated that they had been unable to forgive prior to the intervention. These “Unforgiving” participants in the Enright group outperformed their counterparts in forgiveness attitudes, specifically in reduction of negative emotion against offenders. The quantitative findings did not show significant effects among either the Enright or Chinese-value group, whether in concepts and ranking of importance of forgiveness as value, or in self-esteem, hope and anger. However, the qualitative findings did reveal that both groups saw impacts on participants’ control of emotion, inner peace, and understanding of forgiveness concepts (according to Enright’s conceptualization or to Chinese cultural values). The Enright programme tended to contribute to participants’ handling of their emotions whereas the Chinese-value programme strengthened participants’ knowledge of forgiveness as a core social virtue. The nature of the offence, the offender’s attitude and the offended’s pride were perceived as factors influencing their forgiveness decision, whereas empathy, perspective-taking and reflection were effective strategies in the forgiveness process. Overall, the forgiveness programme based on the Enright process model was found to be exceptionally strong in cultivating forgiveness attitudes and emotional readiness to forgive, whereas the Chinese-value programme cultivated the cognitive understanding of forgiveness as a value. The implications of these findings in light of the application of forgiveness, both as a process-based psychosocial educational programme and as a moral education programme, are discussed. Three further implications are also noted: developing forgiveness education in school guidance; forgiveness as a psychological construct for positive youth development; and forgiveness as a character education programme. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Geometry learning at the junior secondary level should focus on the connection between students’ intuitive, spatial thinking and formal, deductive reasoning. It is crucial for students at this stage to develop abstract concepts based on knowledge of and reasoning with geometric properties. Dynamic geometry tools are promising resources in classroom teaching for enriching students’ experience in geometry. Studies about students’ learning with dynamic geometry tools usually focus on the long-term development of tool use in the contexts of problem solving and explorations. Data are mostly obtained from interviews and observations with students working in small groups or individually. This study begins with an original approach. It aims at understanding students’ perceptions of geometric properties in simple dynamic figures without assuming any prior experience of students with dynamic geometry tools. A special web-based platform was developed to capture students’ results of dragging in dynamic figures. Quantitative and qualitative data were obtained for analysis from this platform and task-based interviews respectively. In a set of 8 tasks designed in this study, students were asked to drag free points in pre-constructed figures to create examples of geometric configurations with parallel lines. Results of the tasks were collected through the web-based platform from 1,589 secondary 1 to 4 Hong Kong students in 11 schools of different backgrounds. In the next stage, 24 secondary 2 students from another 6 schools took part in task-based interviews, enabling detailed observations and analysis of their reasoning. The basic assumption of this design is that students working on the tasks will generate examples of geometric figures that reflect their understanding of relevant geometric properties. Their results could then be analyzed in the form of collective and personal example spaces with critical dimensions of variation to be identified (Watson & Mason, 2005). The findings of the study indicate how participating students vary in their ways of discerning critical geometric properties in dynamic figures. In particular, the results reflect students’ general limited awareness of basic geometric properties, such as equal opposite sides or angles, while manipulating and interpreting pre-constructed figures. Graphical representations of collective example spaces, developed in this study, provide useful means for revealing dimensions of variation in examples generated. It is hoped that the findings and method of the study can inform classroom teaching with dynamic geometry tools that capitalizes on variation in students’ perceptions. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

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

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Curriculum Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy