This study examined learning strategy use in mathematics among East Asian students in East Asian educational systems. By employing latent class analysis on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 data, we found four classes of learning strategy types, namely memorization with metacognitive strategies (17.49%), metacognitive…

Will my children's creativity be hindered if I place them within the rigidity of an East Asian school? Conversely, could my children's math and science skills benefit from the high expectations of an East Asian curriculum and teacher? The purpose of this study is two-fold. Firstly, it aims to demonstrate that comparison between Eastern and Western…

A report entitled "What we can learn from the English, mathematics and science curricula of high-performing jurisdictions" seems taken to suggest... "that imitating the content, pace and pedagogy of Singapore and Hong Kong in particular, would enable us to improve the mathematical performance of English children". This is…

Medium of instruction (MOI) is a highly controversial and thorny educational issue in Hong Kong. Despite the Hong Kong government's strenuous efforts to promote Chinese-medium instruction since 1984, social and community pressure for English-medium instruction (EMI) has been immense and continues to increase. However, the dominance of English as…

This study focused on training students in skills essential to making oral presentations based on original and independent research work as part of their English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course. As a result of the training, students showed an increase in the successful use of research-related skills and a great improvement in their ability to…

This paper examines the nature and socio-political functions of Hong Kong's "Chinese history curriculum" during colonialism and since decolonization and argues that these functions have resulted in a curriculum characterized by rote-learning and geared towards social control. Students are initiated into the traditional, orthodox view of…

Although Hong Kong's education system has long been criticized as lacking in creativity and over-emphasising rote learning, on the whole it has served Hong Kong well in the past years, breeding outstanding business, academic and political leaders who continue to maintain Hong Kong's competitive edge. The traditional elite schools have played a…

Hong Kong has been actively promoting a student-centered approach to teaching since the 1980s. Despite this effort, students in Hong Kong still tend to be traditional learners who rarely experience and gain from real student-centered learning. While teachers hold a "quantitative" concept of learning and focus on transmitting declarative…

Before 1997, no formal curriculum on Chinese cultural education for primary schools was developed in Hong Kong although the education authority had started to introduce some items of Chinese cultural learning into the Chinese language syllabus when the Target Oriented Curriculum was implemented in 1996. However, such items were incorporated into…

Although cultural stereotypes of Asian students as being prone to rote learning, passive and teacher-dependent have been under criticism, the issue of the extent to which Asian heritage culture impacts on Asian students' learning attitudes and behaviour warrants further investigation. This paper reports on an empirical study which compares…

This paper investigates the learning behaviour, learning environment and learning outcomes of Hong Kong Chinese students enrolled on an Australian university's Bachelor of Business degree course taught by visiting Australian lecturers in Hong Kong. The Chinese students are task-focused and passive learners. They do not demonstrate creative…

This article questions the stereotyped picture of the Asian university student as relying heavily on rote learning. A survey comparing Hong Kong students (n=2,143) with Australian norms found similar study processes in the two groups, suggesting that tendencies toward reproductive study approaches may be a function of teaching practices rather…

Reports two studies comparing responses of Filipino and Nepalese students to learning process questionnaires to those for Australian and Hong Kong students. Presents evidence for a similar structure of learning processes in each culture. Concludes that little evidence supports the contention that Asian learners are more prone to rote learning than…

In both Hong Kong and the United States, educational practices, especially those in the early stages of development, often do not lay an adequate foundation for lifelong learning. Using an approach rooted in developmental psychology, however, can help educators understand how individuals, groups, and societies develop or fail to develop an…

Data from 95 educationally disadvantaged Hong Kong students placed in mastery-learning classes were compared with 64 control students in expository-learning classes. Results indicate that under mastery learning, deep- and surface-biased learners increasingly diverge in performance and attitude, with surface learners doing better unit to unit, and…