Despite the global adoption of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and extensive research on the effectiveness (product-oriented) and classroom interactions (process-oriented) of CLIL, existing studies have overlooked the motivational beliefs and metacognitive strategies of CLIL students. Hence, there is a need for a…

This study provides insights into how Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong interpret the concept of "meaning in life." Data were collected from nine focus groups involving 57 junior secondary school students (age range: 13 to 16 years). It was found that students tended to interpret meaning in life as equivalent to "having a plan for a…

Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao, in the Greater China Region, have similar yet different educational systems and curriculum standards, and each has performed well in international tests for science achievement. Using revised Bloom's taxonomy, this study analyzed and explored the similarities and differences among these four Chinese…

There have been increasing concerns about the significant decline in teenagers' intentions to pursue STEM subjects or careers. This study examined how students' perceptions of parental expectations, STEM cultural capital, mathematics/science self-efficacy, gender, and parents' jobs were associated with STEM career aspirations and tested whether…

This study examined the similarities and differences between three distinct Chinese societies (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China) regarding the contribution of gender and grade level to school violence, the ranking orders of perpetration and victimization behavior, and the correlates of school nonattendance due to violence. A cross-national random…

Individual interest in school science lessons can be defined as a relatively stable and enduring personal emotion comprising affective and behavioural reactions to events in the regular science lessons at school. Little research has compared the importance of different factors affecting students' individual interest in school science lessons. The…

The big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) posits that students with the same ability will have higher academic self-concepts when they are in low-ability classes than in high-ability classes. Our research puts the BFLPE under scrutiny by examining goal orientations as the moderators that may affect the size of the BFLPE. We collected data on…

A Chinese version of the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory (SLEI) was used to study the students' perceptions of the actual and preferred laboratory learning environments in Hong Kong junior secondary science lessons. Valid responses of the SLEI from 1932 students of grade 7 to grade 9 indicated that an open-ended inquiry approach seldom…

In this paper, an excerpt of teacher-student interaction in an EFL junior secondary science classroom in Hong Kong is analysed using the conversation analytic method of sequential analysis. The fine-grained analysis reveals that in the teacher's effort to engage her students in the co-construction of a scientific proof, the students' familiar…

This study investigated the relative contribution of syntactic awareness to Chinese reading among Chinese-speaking adolescent readers with and without dyslexia. A total of 78 junior high school students in Hong Kong, 26 dyslexic adolescent readers, 26 average adolescent readers of the same age (chronological age control group) and 26 younger…

This study attempted to investigate Hong Kong junior secondary students' conceptions of China before and after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China, with a view to finding out any changes in their conceptions, and if any, the factors that might have contributed to these changes. The study found that, over the years from 1997 to 2009, students…

This article used the multidimensional random coefficients multinomial logit model to examine the construct validity and detect the substantial differential item functioning (DIF) of the Chinese version of motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (MSLQ-CV). A total of 1,354 Hong Kong junior high school students were administered the…

Collected data from 2,720 Hong Kong junior high school students and obtained teachers' reports about students' academic achievement, ability grouping, and the classes' ability level. Results revealed no significant detrimental effect caused by the ability-grouped class and the ability level of the ability-grouped class. Students in classes that…

Studied the mathematics achievement of boys and girls in four Asian nations that participated in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (Singapore, Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong). Findings support the interactionist model of D. Gerry (1996) in which biologically secondary mathematical abilities are posited to emerge only with…

This is an exploratory study comparing the mathematical cognitive structure of a group of junior high students educated in the United States with that of a group of students recently arrived from Hong Kong. The word association technique was employed to retrieve the mathematical cognitive structures from both groups of students. The word…