This study used the concept of desire in language learning to explore the first-year English journeys of undergraduates at an English-medium instruction (EMI) university in Hong Kong. Desire in language learning is an underexplored area in EMI research but a relevant concept for gaining a multilayered picture of the incentives and pressures of…

Purpose: While blended learning has been proved to be successful in learning outcomes, the landscape of blended learning has changed under coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Hence, the present study aims to explore first-year university students' perceptions of wholly blended learning during the pandemic, through the three constructs in the…

The effects of teachers' audio feedback on students' project-based learning and its influencing factors have seldom been empirically explored in the higher education context. To address this research gap, a group of Hong Kong freshmen (18-23 years old) and their teachers were involved in this study. Data were collected from students' retrospective…

Existing studies have measured the effect of video-based feedback on student performance or satisfaction. Other issues are underacknowledged or merit further investigation. These include sociocultural aspects which may shape the design and implementation of video-based feedback, the ways students use technology to engage in feedback, and the…

Generic competency development activities (GCDAs) help students develop critical thinking, problem-solving, innovation, creativity, communication and social skills. This study evaluated students' acceptance of a machine learning-assisted recommendation system (MARS) developed to recommend GCDAs for students in a higher education institution. This…

This paper investigates the effects of large language model (LLM) based feedback on the essay writing proficiency of university students in Hong Kong. It focuses on exploring the potential improvements that generative artificial intelligence (AI) can bring to student essay revisions, its effect on student engagement with writing tasks, and the…

This study investigates the impact of feedback generated by large language models (LLMs) on improving the essay-writing skills of first-year university students in Hong Kong. Specifically, it examines how generative AI supports students in revising their essays, enhances engagement with writing tasks, and influences their emotional responses…

This study aims to investigate the usefulness of a deductive-cum-process writing approach to raise native Cantonese-speaking ESL students' awareness of the inappropriate use of informal language in academic writing. Achieving tone formality by incorporating appropriate syntactic and semantic elements poses great difficulties to freshmen at the…

This research conducted diagnostic assessment of problems in first-year undergraduates' English academic papers and tracked potential sources of the problems to the writing process and strategy use. Data collected include 339 term papers and interviews with 17 students. The samples were manually error tagged and marked against a detailed…

This study adopted a single-group pretest-posttest design to explore the changes in 2,876 undergraduate students in positive youth development, psychological well-being and desired graduate attributes after they took a leadership subject utilising the positive youth development approach at one university in Hong Kong. The subject aims to promote…

Purpose: Hong Kong has undergone extensive curriculum reform and shifted from a three-year to a four-year university system. With a nuanced look at the impact of the curriculum reform, the purpose of the present study was to compare two concurrent cohorts by examining the extent to which the students in each cohort perceived their learning…

This study focuses on the perceptions of learning EAP of first-year undergraduates with high ESL proficiency admitted to an English-medium university in Hong Kong. Two in-depth individual interviews were conducted with nine participants and their written assignments were analysed. The data reveal several challenges facing the high achievers in…

This study seeks to understand how first-year teacher education students in a Hong Kong university employed wikis, together with other Web 2.0 tools, in support of group work. Taking a holistic approach, the investigation included the technological tools designed by the instructor, and those tools employed by students themselves outside the…

The mission of universities today is not only to nurture experts in various professions, but also to cultivate lifelong autonomous learners. Independent learning and pedagogies that aim to foster learner autonomy have grown in importance over the past decade. However, the extent to which independent learning is successful in fostering autonomy has…

The study set out to facilitate tertiary learners' development of oral presentation skills within the self-regulated-learning framework. A published, relatively comprehensive inventory of presentation (delivery) skills was adopted in this mixed methods study, which comprised pre- and post-programme self-evaluation questionnaires, post-programme…