Hong Kong Institute Of Education Research Articles

Hui, M.-F., & Grossman, D. L. (2008). Improving Teacher Education through Action Research. New York: Taylor and Francis.

As is known to all, teacher education is a field of scientific inquiry where future teachers receive systematic training in “worthwhile pedagogic practices” so that “they are more likely to emulate them in their role as teachers” (Morris, foreword). To make this happen, teachers in teacher education should experiment with innovative ways to improve their own practices aimed at addressing important issues in the teaching of different subject domains, such as assessment, curriculum, and learner autonomy in the era of modern technology. But whether innovation means effectiveness is an empirical issue. The book edited by Ming-Fai Hui and David L. Grossman (2008), Improving Teacher Education through Action Research, is a collection of action research reports on a series of projects conducted in Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) aiming to find more effective ways of teaching in the new era.

A Quantitative Analysis of Postgraduate Programmes Admission of the Hong Kong Institute of Education

This paper analyzed 8 years' student admission trend of Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) postgraduate programmes in 2 time slots. In the first time period, year 2007-2010, we use the waterfall and competing pattern model for the quantitative analysis of the postgraduate programmes in a holistic manner of HKIEd, and further study the general student admission trend of year 2011-2013, due to the sharp increase of mainland China students and the 3-3-4 Scheme Education System Reform in 2011 and 2012. In this paper, we utilize this rich collection of programmes to identify usable admission patterns by analyzing admission data of the past years for reinforcing the institute's strength and reputation, whose programme spectrum was expanded and enhanced quite drastically since 2005 with the introduction of 1st Master in Education cohort. In particular, this paper is focused to locate: 1) if there is any internal competition and how severe the competition is. 2) If there is any programme that can be utilized as strategic recruitment? and 3) the general student admission trend of the 8 years. With this study, management can better understand where the sources of applicants come from. New insight can be drawn and new strategy can be defined to recruit more quality students which are also aligned with our strategic move to transform the students. The methods used in this paper can be easily applied in other University for analyzing the admission issues, and can demonstrate to management how operation data can be utilized to form valuable insights and significant improvement can then be made based on these identified facts.

Research into language education at The Research Centre for Language Education and Acquisition in Multilingual Societies (RCLEAMS) at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, China

The Research Centre for Language Education and Acquisition in Multilingual Societies (RCLEAMS) is one of four Institute-level Research Centres at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). The principal aim of RCLEAMS is to study multilingual acquisition, language contact and the respective roles of different languages of education in contexts where the languages are not cognate (and where the scripts are often different), in order to be able to better understand the processes and issues involved and to inform governments and language policy-makers. Our particular focus is on Asian languages, including, of course, Chinese, and English. Further details about RCLEAMS, including our specific objectives and international partners, can be found at the website (www.ied.edu.hk/rcleams/). While RCLEAMS itself is relatively small, with only four full-time researchers, we conduct collaborative research with colleagues from the Institute itself, other universities in Hong Kong and with a number of international partners. There are also some thirty doctoral students in the field of language education who work closely with the Centre. We invite anyone who might be interested in working collaboratively with us to get in touch. This report will summarise current and recently completed research projects.

Designing and Implementing Outcome-Based Learning in a Linguistics Course: a Case Study in Hong Kong

Since the 1980s, Outcome-Based Learning (OBL) has been gaining popularity around the world. In 2006, the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong decided that all higher education institutions in Hong Kong should adopt OBL formally stage by stage to enhance learning and teaching quality. As OBL is new to most Hong Kong higher education institutions, there is an urgent need for a close study of the design and implementation of OBL in the Hong Kong context. This paper reports on a case study of designing and implementing OBL in a linguistics course in the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd).

Academic freedom, university governance and the state: the Commission of Inquiry into the Hong Kong Institute of Education

In 2007, a Judicial Commission of Inquiry was established by the Government of Hong Kong to investigate allegations that senior officials had interfered with the academic freedom and institutional autonomy of the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). It concluded that a former minister had requested the President of that institution to curb the criticisms of Government policies by two of his colleagues. The report had significant ramifications including the resignation of the former minister. This article initially describes the background to the Inquiry and subsequently analyses why the situation escalated and resulted in the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry. The explanation focuses on the inherent weaknesses of the system of Governance, the political ecology of Hong Kong and recent changes to the political system.

Success through collaboration: a community-based model for pre-service teachers

This study investigated benefits for pre-service teachers of participating in a community art education project called A Street in Hong Kong. The study was part of a collaborative project involving the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd), schools and artists between 2007 and 2008. The data for the study was collected by means of questionnaires, individual and focus group interviews and classroom observation. Feedback was also obtained from the school principals, artists, school art teachers and primary-school pupils. The study found that the pre-service teachers benefited in several ways: they learned ceramic-making skills from the artists they could teach in primary schools and how to design art lessons through teamwork with peers and about classroom teaching from schoolteachers. They also learned how to find resources for community-based art lessons; and to help them organize a group exhibition; and were pleased to receive financial support for the project.

Promoting the Visibility of Educational Research through an Institutional Repository

Established in 1994 through the amalgamation of several teacher training colleges, The Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) is the major multidisciplinary teacher education provider in the Hong Kong SAR. Despite this, the Institute does not have a particularly high research profile when compared with its peer institutions in Hong Kong and around the world. Its research publishing achieves modest exposure and impact in international educational research literature. The Institute has a goal to attain the title of a “university of education” and has identified an improvement in its research output and profile as critical to achieving this. In this context the HKIEd Library embarked on the redevelopment of its institutional repository, changing its direction from being an archive of institutional publications to one which brought together and offered access to the sum total of published output of the Institute since its foundation, in a deliberate effort to promote Institute research. This paper explores the particular approach taken by the Library to the development of the institutional repository, how the repository contributes directly to and aligns with the research strategies of the Institute, and the impact the Repository has had so far on improving the profile of research at HKIEd.

Promoting the Visibility of Educational Research through an Institutional Repository

Established in 1994 through the amalgamation of several teacher training colleges, The Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) is the major multidisciplinary teacher education provider in the Hong Kong SAR. Despite this, the Institute does not have a particularly high research profile when compared with its peer institutions in Hong Kong and around the world. Its research publishing achieves modest exposure and impact in international educational research literature. The Institute has a goal to attain the title of a “university of education” and has identified an improvement in its research output and profile as critical to achieving this. In this context the HKIEd Library embarked on the redevelopment of its institutional repository, changing its direction from being an archive of institutional publications to one which brought together and offered access to the sum total of published output of the Institute since its foundation, in a deliberate effort to promote Institute research. This paper explores the particular approach taken by the Library to the development of the institutional repository, how the repository contributes directly to and aligns with the research strategies of the Institute, and the impact the Repository has had so far on improving the profile of research at HKIEd.

Language proficiency assessment for teachers: The effects of benchmarking on writing assessment in Hong Kong schools

This article argues that the language proficiency assessment for teachers (LPAT), which the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) first operated for English teachers in 2001, is likely to exert a detrimental influence on the assessment of student writing by reinforcing traditional conceptions of language, grammar and pedagogy. It first addresses aspects of the broader Hong Kong educational context, seeking briefly to indicate a range of on-going concerns and alluding to a tendency for government to impose top-down reforms which tend to be adopted but not implemented. It then considers the government-perceived/induced linguistic and pedagogical limitations of teachers that provoked the imposition of the LPAT scheme. After evaluating the often hostile reaction to this initiative, the article examines past practice in writing assessment by discussing an objective small-scale research project involving pre-service student teachers of English midway through a 3-year non-degree Teacher’s Certificate course at one of the now defunct Colleges of Education in Hong Kong in 1991. This retrospective review makes evident the researcher’s alarm, both at the student-teachers’ frequent omission of a response to meaning and their inclination to mis-correct and/or over-correct form. Through the presentation and discussion of subjective self-report data obtained from a two-part survey of serving, experienced teachers of English in Hong Kong secondary schools attending a full-time 16-week credit-bearing professional upgrading course in 2001 at the recently established Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd), the article then seeks to examine present writing assessment procedures and to gauge the likely future impact of the government’s LPAT exercise on teacher attitudes towards and treatment of pupil writing. These data suggest that procedures have not changed substantially in the last decade and that the LPAT initiative is likely to strengthen an existing and pre-existing teacher preoccupation with correctness, to reinforce more traditional perceptions of language and grammar and, consequently, to restrain more innovative pedagogies. The article concludes that consultation with teachers and the adoption of positive incentives rather than punitive strategies might yield more productive results.

Drills or Plays: Some Social Implications in PE Pedagogy

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in English; abstract also in Chinese.Personal observations and evaluation reports on teaching practice suggest that PE teachers attending training at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) tend to "over teach" in the sense that they talk too much and put too much emphasis on scientific details such as the mechanical properties of a movement. As more time was spent on explanation and other phases of teaching, learning through play in the applying phase was reduced. Observations also indicated that PE teachers tended to use drills rather than plays or modified games to allow pupils to acquire the criteria performance. A study of 250 lesson plans written by 24 students of an Advanced Certificate of Teacher Education (ACTE) course and 30 students of a Teacher Certificate (TC) course in the HKIEd has also revealed the same tendency. Evidence indicates that the mean time allocation for the applying phase shown by these students is lower than that suggested by textbooks/documents in pedagogy (approximately 50%). "Over teaching" in the above sense may be a socio-political measure in response to the academic movement of our discipline. Drills, which in general facilitate skill refinement, neglect the interest of different ability groups and the two sexes.根據個人觀察及學生實習教學評估報告所得，香港教育學院體育系學生在實習教學時，一般傾向於「過度講授」，在學習前期花太多時間於某些運動科學知識上(例如某些技巧的力學原理)，由於教學上用於講解及其他環節佔用了大部分時間，「技術應用」的機會相應減少。觀察所得亦同時指出，學生在實習教學時亦較喜歡用「操演」的形式，多於讓學生透過實演或模擬遊戲去鞏固有關技術。作者分析24名資深教育証書課程(ACTE)及30名二年制教師証書課程(TC)學生所寫的250份教案，發現學生在課堂上編配予「技術應用」這一環節的時間比率，較一般體育教學文獻所建議的爲低(約課堂時間的50%)。「過度講授」可能是體育界對體育學術化的反響。「操演」有利於技巧的提升，但是忽略了不同技術能力組別及男女之間的興趣差異。

A New Attempt in Initial Teacher Education in Hong Kong: The Cooperating Teacher Scheme

Though the notion of a mentor or cooperating teacher in initial teacher education has been implemented in other countries for many years (Haberman, 1971; Spillane & Levenson, 1976), it was first attempted in initial primary teacher education in Hong Kong only in 1994. The present study aims to investigate this new attempt by the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) to foster supporting relationships in teacher education. The paper focuses on the Cooperating Teacher Scheme (CTS) as a learning experience for student‐teachers and the different roles of the school, cooperating teachers, and HKIEd lecturers. The study includes a quantitative component and a qualitative component. Eighty schools were selected randomly from a list of 130 schools participating in the Scheme in 1995‐96. Four agents, viz. school heads, co‐operating teachers, lecturers and student‐teachers involved in the CTS were invited to complete a questionnaire and representatives from each category were interviewed. The findings consider student‐teachers’ learning as well as varying perceptions of the roles of the four agents in the scheme. Based on the findings, implications of the CTS in initial and further teacher education as well as the collaboration between schools and the Institute are drawn. Descriptors: Field experience, co‐operating teacher, student‐teacher learning, teacher education, institute‐school collaboration.