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The purpose of this study was to adapt the "Attitudes toward Physical Activity Scale" (APAS) for Turkish higher education students. Study was conducted during 2018-2019 autumn semester at a public university in the central Anatolia region of Turkey. The APAS was applied to 1021 voluntary university students from eleven different faculties and departments of the university. Descriptive statistics, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, internal consistency coefficients were used in statistical analysis. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a six factor solution explaining 60.2% of the variance. Then, confirmatory factor analysis on the 38 items showed good fit to the 6-dimension model according to the goodness-of-fit criteria. The psychometric data of the scale showed that the Turkish version of the scale for higher education students reached the required levels. As a result, the "Attitudes toward Physical Activity Scale" can be used in reliable and valid way at higher education students in Turkey at national or cross-cultural studies in examining physical activity attitudes.

Purpose: Literature indicates that open classroom climate (OCC) is a positive influence on civic outcomes. Few studies have explored factors that appear to facilitate OCC. Most research on OCC has focused on Western countries. The emphasis has been on individual student characteristics related to OCC with little attention made to school level effects. The purpose of the present study was to investigate both individual and school level influences on OCC using Asian student samples. Methodology: Data were drawn from the five Asian societies that participated in the 2009 International Civics and Citizenship Education Study. Multilevel regression analysis was used to test individual and school level relationships in the data. Findings: There were significant differences among the five societies with regard to student perceptions of OCC. At the individual level, results showed the importance of good student-teacher relationships, students' discussion experiences outside school, and civic participating at school for promoting OCC. Civic knowledge and self-efficacy were positively related to OCC in four Asian societies. The roles of school level predictors differed from society to society, some predictors even working in the opposite direction. Different cultural contexts, local policies, and school system characteristics might account for these differences.

In recent years, it has become common to use the internet or computer tutoring with a programme or application for additional instruction (ICTPAAI), in addition to the mandatory school schedule. This study aimed to understand students' participation in ICTPAAI and its relation to academic achievement. Multilevel structural equation modelling was conducted on a sample comprising 6,425 Chinese students (M[subscript age] 15.72 years; 48.9% girls) who had various forms of additional instruction during the 2014/2015 school year. Results showed that the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to complete schoolwork, whether in school or outside of school, was positively associated with students' participation in ICTPAAI; however, students' ICT interest, ICT self-efficacy and ICT autonomy were not. Students' participation in ICTPAAI was negatively associated with their academic achievement at the end of the school year; much variance was explained at the school level. These findings suggest that students should be cautious about participating in this form of additional instruction and that schools play an important role in students' participation in ICTPAAI.

The current study explores students' collaboration and problem solving (CPS) abilities using a human-to-agent (H-A) computer-based collaborative problem solving assessment. Five CPS assessment units with 76 conversation-based items were constructed using the PISA 2015 CPS framework. In the experiment, 53,855 ninth and tenth graders in Taiwan were recruited, and a multidimensional item response analysis was used to develop CPS scales and represent the students' collaboration and problem solving performance. The results show that the developed H-A approach is feasible for measuring students' CPS skills, and the CPS scales are also shown to be reliable. In addition, the students' CPS performance scores are further explored and discussed under the PISA CPS framework.

This study aims to identify the predictors of Chinese reading and literacy skills among Chinese school children in Taiwan. Participants recruited in the study were 182 Grade 1 elementary school students. First, data were collected on these students' literacy skills, which comprised morphological awareness, orthography processing, visual perception skills, phonological awareness, and rapid automatised naming. In Grade 2, data were collected from these students on their word decoding skills, which comprised character recognition and reading fluency. Finally, in Grade 3, data were collected on the Chinese comprehension skills of the same students. A structural equation model examined the direct and indirect effects of students' literacy skills at Grade 1 on their reading comprehension at Grade 3, with students' word decoding at Grade 2 acting as a mediator. Results showed that reading comprehension of students at Grade 3 was predicted by their literacy skills at Grade 1.

Previous studies have suggested that teacher's personality traits and pedagogy are the important areas of investigation in creativity research; however, little is known about the relationship between teachers' personality traits and creativity-fostering pedagogy. This study proposed a model describing 3 types of perceived personality traits that contribute to teachers' support of important creativity-fostering pedagogy. The model was tested on a sample of 875 Chinese early childhood teachers. This study first established factorial validity of the measurement scales, the Creative Personality Questionnaire (CPQ) and the Early Childhood Creative Pedagogy Questionnaire (ECCPQ). Confirmatory factor analysis supported the 4-factor structure of the ECCPQ, but failed to replicate the 5-factor structure of the CPQ. An alternative 3-factor model was obtained as a personality measure. The results of multiple regression and structural equation modeling analysis showed that the proposed model was partially supported by the data. Although cognitive abilities factor of creative personality, as expected, was the strongest predictor of self-reported important creative pedagogy, surprisingly openness did not explain unique variance in any of the creative pedagogy factors. One distinct path tapped a relation between the discipline personality traits and teacher-oriented pedagogy was identified, which was seldom addressed in Western creativity research. It may reflect a cultural-specific indigenous variations.

Not yet citizens, adolescents are encouraged through civic education to consider an active role in the future political life of their societies. This study seeks to understand the mediating role of political self-efficacy and political interest in the association between previous civic experience and Asian adolescents' expected participation in legal protest. Using data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2009, which included 23,654 students from South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Thailand, a multi-group multi-level path analysis based on Rasch measures was employed to investigate how adolescent civic experiences both in and out of school influence their expected participation in legal protest. The results showed the effect of political discussion and that of school participation were fully mediated by political interest and self-efficacy. The effect of community participation was partially mediated by political interest and self-efficacy in the five societies except South Korea. While the total effect of school participation is relatively low across the five societies, the total effect of political discussion is stronger for adolescents in East Asia (South Korea, Chinese Taipei, and Hong Kong) and that of community participation is stronger in South East Asia (Thailand and Indonesia).

Self-regulated learning (SRL) is of great importance to academic achievement and life-long learning. This study aimed to examine the prediction of three processes of primary students' SRL using students' prior achievement, interest in mathematics, personal best goal orientation, and their perceptions of teachers' feedback one academic year earlier. The SRL processes were planning, monitoring, and adaptive reactions. The sample comprised 2972 (1608 females and 1364 males) primary school students in Hong Kong. Multi-level path analysis determined that prior achievement, interest in mathematics, personal best goal orientation, and feedback predicted students' planning, monitoring, and adaptive reactions after one academic year, with interest and personal best goal orientation being the strongest predictors. Strategies for promoting interest in mathematics and developing personal best goal orientation among primary school students are discussed in the article.

School choice has been an issue in the education systems where parents are given the autonomy to select schools for their children. Previous research suggests that parental decisions are affected by demographic, financial, and value-related factors. This study investigated variables including: demographic and socio-economic background, motivation, quality of school curriculum, quality of school life, and classroom environment as factors contributing to secondary students' choice of schools for their own children. The sample comprised 8,265 secondary students from 70 Catholic schools in New South Wales, Australia. Analysis of variance and logistic regression were used to identify contributing factors of school choice. Findings suggested that students' expectations of schools, quality of school curriculum, quality of school life, and the classroom environments they experienced all contributed to their intention to send their own children to the same schools, after controlling for their background differences. On the other hand, students' intentions were not affected by their gender, socio-economic backgrounds, or country of birth. (Contains 5 figures and 6 tables.)

This study aimed to explore the cross-lagged association of achievements in mathematics and languages. While the effect of language on achievements in mathematics is well-documented, few studies have examined the reciprocal relationships among mathematics, the Chinese language and the English language in the same study. This study conducted a secondary analysis of longitudinal achievement data collected through the Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) in Hong Kong. The sample comprised 48,547 third-grade, unbalanced bilingual students who were measured three times over six years: in 2007 (in Grade 3), 2010 (Grade 6) and 2013 (Grade 9). Multilevel cross-lagged analysis found prior achievement in a subject was the strongest predictor of achievement in that subject three years later. Furthermore, cross-subject bidirectional prediction was found among achievements in mathematics, Chinese language and English language for students from Grade 3 to Grade 6 and from Grade 6 to Grade 9.

Background: Prior cross-cultural research with students in different national contexts (Australia and China) has shown consistency in the extent to which individual personal best (PB) goals are associated with engagement at school. Aims: This study extends this work to a multicultural context, assessing perceived PB goal structure in school and individual PB goals among Chinese- and English-speaking background Australian high school students attending the same schools. Sample: A sample of 450 students (N = 225 Chinese-speaking background Australian students; N = 225 matched English-speaking background Australian students) from 20 schools. Method: We conducted multigroup path modelling to examine the following process model: Perceived PB goal structure in school ? individual PB goals ? school engagement ? academic achievement. Results: Findings showed that for both groups, perceived PB goal structure in school is associated with an individual's PB goals (and engagement), individual PB goals are associated with engagement, and engagement is associated with achievement. The indirect effects of perceived PB goal structure in school to achievement (via individual PB goals and engagement) and individual PB goals to achievement (via engagement) were also significant. Notably, there was no significant difference in parameters between Chinese- and English-speaking background students, suggesting generality of the effects of perceived PB goal structure in school and individual PB goals in the engagement and achievement process. Conclusion: Findings hold implications for educators teaching to culturally diverse classrooms and seeking to optimize students' academic growth within these contexts.

This study aimed to investigate the structure and the validity of the cognitive components of reading in Thai, which is a language with a high degree of grapheme-phoneme correspondence. The participants were 1181 fourth-grade students in 29 schools in Thailand, divided into two subsamples for data analysis. Phoneme isolation, rapid colour naming, rapid number naming, rapid word segmentation, morphological structure and morphological production were developed based on the cognitive theories involved in reading. The reliabilities of the tests ranged from 0.81 to 0.98. The structure of the cognitive components of reading in Thai was examined using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). With subsample 1 (N = 590), the results of EFA support a three-factor structure, measuring morphological awareness, decoding-related and rapid naming skills. With subsample 2 (N = 591), the results of CFA are consistent with the findings of EFA. These findings indicate that the three-factor structure is appropriate to examine the cognitive components of reading in Thai language.

Traditionally, teachers evaluate students' abilities via their total test scores. Recently, cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) have begun to provide information about the presence or absence of students' skills or misconceptions. Nevertheless, CDMs are typically applied to tests with multiple-choice (MC) items, which provide less diagnostic information than constructed-response (CR) items. This paper introduces new CDMs for tests with both MC and CR items, and illustrates how to use them to analyse MC and CR data, and thus, identify students' skills and misconceptions in a mathematics domain. Analyses of real data, the responses of 497 sixth-grade students randomly selected from four Taiwanese primary schools to eight direct proportion items, were conducted to demonstrate the application of the new models. The results show that the new models can better determine students' skills and misconceptions, in that they have higher inter-rater agreement rates than traditional CDMs.

Background: A number of methods to investigate growth have been reported in the literature, including hierarchical linear modelling (HLM), latent growth modelling (LGM), and multidimensional scaling applied to longitudinal profile analysis (LPAMS). Aims: This study aimed at modelling the mathematics growth of students over a span of 6 years from Grade 3 to Grade 9. Sample: The sample comprised secondary longitudinal data collected in three waves from n = 866 Hong Kong students when they were in Grade 3, Grade 6, and Grade 9. Method: Mathematics achievement was measured thrice on a vertical scale linked with anchor items. Linear and nonlinear latent growth models were used to assess students' growth. Gender differences were also examined. Results: A nonlinear latent growth curve with a decelerated rate had a good fit to the data. Initial achievement and growth rate were negatively correlated. No gender difference was found. Conclusion: Mathematics growth from Grade 6 to Grade 9 was slower than that from Grade 3 to Grade 6. Students with lower initial achievement improved at a faster rate than those who started at a higher level. Gender did not affect growth rate.

Apparent bullying and victimization rates vary, depending on how these rates are measured. This study used Olweus-type global items and a short version of the School Bullying Scales to investigate the prevalence rate and behavioral ranking of bullying and victimization among secondary students in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao. We used the response categories and cut-off point from the World Health Organization Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study. A total of 11,876 secondary students (grades 7-12) participated in this study. Results revealed that the rates of self-reported bullying, victimization, and combined bullying/victimization were 5.1, 9.3, and 1.8 %, respectively. The prevalence rates of bullying and victimization in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao were quite similar. More male students were involved in bullying and victimization than female students. Prevalence rates of bullying and victimization decreased as grade level increased. Verbal bullying and victimization were the most common categories of school bullying. Implications of the results for bullying research are discussed.

Objective: To identify levels of moderate-intensity physical activity (MPA) and vigorous-intensity physical activity (VPA) in a representative sample of college students in six East Asian economies and examine their relationship with weight, alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting: College students recruited from 21 different colleges in six East Asian economies. Method: Self-reported physical activity, weight, height, alcohol consumption, and smoking were assessed using already-validated instruments. Multiple logistic regression models of MPA and VPA were separately performed for each economy, controlling for age, gender, living area before college, military experience, paid employment, and religion. All the analyses were performed using SAS 9.2 with clustering effects accounted for. Results: Being a heavy drinker increased the odds of engaging in VPA in five economies (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.56 to 2.65). Cigarette smoking was not associated with MPA in any economy and was only associated with VPA in China (AOR = 1.54) and Taiwan (AOR = 1.48), indicating that smokers are more likely to engage in VPA than non-smokers. Conclusions: The relationship between college students' VPA and alcohol consumption and between MPA and cigarette smoking is similar across the East Asian economies, whereas the relationship between VPA and smoking varies substantially.

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 mathematics self-concept, mathematics ability and goal orientation from 7334 Hong Kong junior secondary school students in 201 classes. We hypothesised that the BFLPE would be exacerbated for students who endorsed high extrinsic goals while the BFLPE would be attenuated for students who endorsed high intrinsic goals. However, the results did not fully support the hypothesis. We found that students who were highly motivated in general (both intrinsic and extrinsic) experienced stronger BFLPE. The implications of the findings are discussed.

The study aimed to uncover the conceptions of creativity among early childhood teachers in Hong Kong. The sample comprised 563 early childhood teachers. Factor analysis supported the multidimensional hypothesis of teachers' conceptions of creativity. Five dimensions were found: novelty, product, problem solving, cognitive processes and personal attributes. Early childhood teachers in Hong Kong ascribed high importance to these dimensions as defining characteristics of creativity, with a person's cognitive processes and personal attributes being ascribed relatively more important while product as relatively less importance. In particular, imagination, multiple perspectives and curiosity were perceived as very important concepts of creativity. Teachers with different teaching backgrounds shared very similar conceptions of creativity. Significant results were found with regard to product only. The findings have implications for early childhood teacher education programmes and professional development in Hong Kong. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

The present study investigates problem-solving skill alongside more widely recognized settlement and sociodemographic factors in first-generation (1G) and second-generation (2G) immigrant students' science and mathematics achievement. A total of 113,767 students (ages 15-16 years) from 17 countries were drawn from the 2003 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data set. Multilevel hierarchical regression findings confirm that along with settlement and sociodemographic factors, problem-solving skill is a factor in immigrant students' achievement in mathematics and science--but that immigrant students scored lower in problem solving than nonimmigrant students. Settlement and sociodemographic factors relevant to achievement and problem-solving skill for immigrant students include socioeconomic status, language background, age of arrival, gender, and age--in addition to significant between-school and between-country effects. The variance explained by settlement and sociodemographic factors suggests it is not immigrant status per se that explains lower achievement and problem-solving skill (thus countering deficit perspectives), but various factors that are embedded in and associated with immigrant status that explain the bulk of such variance. Implications for educational and psychological research, practice, and policy are discussed. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

This study examined the prediction of academic self-concept (English and Mathematics) and learning strategies (deep and surface), and their direction of effect, on academic achievement (English and Mathematics) of 8,354 students from 16 secondary schools in Hong Kong. Two competing models were tested to ascertain the direction of effect: Model A posited the effect of academic self-concept on learning strategies, whereas Model B posited the effect of learning strategies on academic self-concept. Structural equation modeling indicated that the data fit both models adequately, although Model B was found to have more applied heuristic value for practitioners than Model A because intervention is easier for learning strategies than self-concept. Further investigation also supported the reciprocal relationship between academic self-concept and academic achievement. The findings suggest that academic self-concept, learning strategies, and academic achievement have reciprocal relationships with each other. (Contains 4 figures and 6 tables.)

This study aimed to establish the validity of the Language Development Rating Scale and the Attitudes toward Reading and Voluntary Reading Behaviour Rating Scale in Morrow's Checklist for Assessing Early Literacy Development for use with preschool children in Hong Kong. The sample comprised 2619 preschool children aged three-five years who were currently enrolled in preschool levels K1-K3 in Hong Kong. Analysis showed that the two scales had strong construct validity and internal consistency, and that both fit well to the Rasch model. Nevertheless, findings of the Rasch analysis suggested that the level of the Language Development Scale did not align well with the language proficiency of kindergarten children in the sample who were more proficient than the proficiency levels demanded by the items in the scale. The results suggested such further refinement such as the inclusion of more advanced items may be necessary for valid local applications. (Contains 5 tables and 2 figures.)

This study is concerned with the attribution of secondary students. Causal interpretations for academic success and failure were analysed to investigate the effect of gender, year level and achievement level on students' academic attributions in Hong Kong, a Confucian Heritage Culture. The sample for the study comprised 14,846 students currently enrolled in Secondary 1 to Secondary 6 in Hong Kong. Multivariate analyses of variance found significant gender differences in ascriptions to ability, effort and strategy use reasons for school performance of students who shared a common cultural background. These effects remained after controlling for achievement and year levels. Chinese females in this sample were more inclined than Chinese males to explain their academic failure in terms of their lack of ability and strategy use. Females were also more likely to explain their academic success in terms of their effort or strategy use. Nevertheless, the study found secondary students of both genders and across all achievement and year levels, consistently ascribed to effort as the most important reason for academic outcomes. Secondary 4 students were significantly more inclined than students of lower levels to attribute their academic outcomes to effort and strategy use. Cultural influences are discussed in interpreting the findings. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)

The initiatives for educational effectiveness experienced 3 waves of movements. Each wave had its own paradigm in conceptualizing the nature of education and its effectiveness and formulating related initiatives for improvement of educational practice in the classroom. This article aims to discuss how the conceptualization and characteristics of the effective classroom are changed with the paradigm shift from the traditional site-bounded paradigm toward the new Contextualized Multiple Intelligences (CMI)-triplization paradigm. With the support of empirical data, the profiles of effective and ineffective classrooms in the 1st and 3rd waves are mapped and discussed, and some implications are drawn for research and development of a new type of classroom effectiveness. (Contains 5 tables and 4 figures.)

This article aims to investigate reasons underpinning academic help-seeking behaviours of Chinese students in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Data were collected from 23,563 secondary students. The study found significant differences both in attitudes and reported behaviour among secondary school students from the three locations, however, the effect sizes were all very small. Importantly, it was found that no matter which location, students considered grade enhancement to be the least important benefit of help-seeking. Rather, the most important benefit was that help-seeking enabled them to solve their learning difficulties or to solve their learning problems. The study also found that losing face was the last deterrent for the students not to seek help. Instead, Chinese secondary school students refrained from seeking help because they were afraid to disturb others in the act of help-seeking. In addition, a high proportion of students reported seeking help in the past two months in order to get advice on problem-solving approaches. Comparatively, a much smaller proportion of students reported seeking help in the last two months in order to improve on their grades. These results were discussed in light of the previous images of Chinese students.

This study reports on the Hong Kong education quality assurance and school monitoring system. Three research questions were addressed: (1) Who controls the quality of school education in Hong Kong? (2) What strategies are used in the Hong Kong school education quality assurance process? (3) Agenda for Future Research on quality assurance and school monitoring in Hong Kong. The analysis found that whilst quality assurance systems in Hong Kong are sophisticated, major reviews are necessary to rebuild trust between the government and practitioners.

Purpose: This paper aims to report empirical research investigating how school-based management (SBM) and paradigm shift (PS) in education are closely related to teachers' student-centered teaching and students' active learning in a sample of Hong Kong secondary schools. Design/methodology/approach: It is a cross-sectional survey research involving 31 secondary schools, 1,119 teachers and 7,063 students with seven sets of questionnaires: three for students, three for teachers and one for principals. Findings: The results of analysis indicate the following findings. The greater tendency towards SBM of a school associates with the greater extent of PS from the site-bounded paradigm towards the triplization paradigm in education. Both the measures of SBM and PS in education are closed related to teachers' student-centered teaching (in terms of facilitating student learning, facilitating student thinking and facilitating student self-reflection and assessment) and students' active learning (in terms of positive learning attitudes, application of various learning methods, learning effectiveness, multiple thinking in learning and satisfaction in learning). The profiles of "high SBM and high-PS" schools are much more preferable than "low SBM and low-PS" schools in terms of various measures of teachers' teaching and students' learning. Originality/value: Even though SBM and PS in education are strongly emphasized in ongoing educational reforms in different parts of the world, there is lack of empirical study to show how they are related to teachers' teaching and students' learning in practice. The findings of the research contribute to filling this research gap and advancing theoretical and practical understanding in such a frontier area. (Contains 9 tables and 4 figures.)

This study describes the use of a metacognitive approach for self-assessment of teacher education students. The design of the study was guided by the principles of learning-oriented assessment and the centrality of reflection for teachers. The study comprised five case studies undertaken in five teacher education programmes. In each programme, students self-assessed at the beginning, middle and end of learning. Subgroups of students were invited to represent their learning using concept maps and were interviewed on their progression in self-assessment. Analysis indicated that students found the metacognitive approach supportive of their learning and self-assessment. Students were more aware of their learning and thinking processes at the end of the study. Further, teachers involved in the project found the method demanding yet generating useful feedback which enhanced their teaching. (Contains 1 note, 2 tables, and 3 figures.)

This paper reports the development of performance indicators for measuring primary and secondary students? affective and social outcomes of schooling. Psychometric properties as well as norms for the selected performance indicators for Hong Kong students were developed. The performance indicator system developed in this study has been subsequently used for school self?evaluation and continuous self?improvement in Hong Kong.

This study focuses on primary students' self-learning strategies, using a sample of 1253 students from 20 Year 3 and 20 Year 5 classes from 10 primary schools in Hong Kong. Students were asked to name sources from which they could learn. They were then asked to rate 10 self-learning strategies on perceived usefulness and personal deployment. Students named an average of 2.5 learning sources, with print exposure (reading) being the most commonly nominated source. Multilevel analysis revealed substantial differences (27% of attributable variance) between classes on student ability to name learning sources. In general, the students indicated that all 10 suggested learning strategies were useful. The two most commonly deployed strategies were help-seeking and locating a quiet study environment. Gender differences were not found on naming learning resources, but girls indicated relatively higher levels of strategy awareness and deployment.