By case-studying a multi-route school-choice system like that of Hong Kong, this study attempts to investigate the role of district characteristics in student access to school choice under different admissions policies. A district's income, education, and immigrant level all had stronger negative impacts on school-choice assignments made by the…

One of the key aims of formative assessment in higher education is to enable students to become self-regulated learners (Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006). Based on Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick's (2006) framework, this exploratory study investigates which formative assessment practices proposed by them were used by one college EFL writing teacher to…

This paper aims to report a case study of exploring the effect of "assessment for learning" on improving student learning and facilitating teachers' professional development in the examination-oriented context of Hong Kong. By adopting Variation Theory of the Lesson Study approach, data were collected through pre- and post-tests,…

This paper reports a case study of four project schools in the primary school context of Hong Kong. It has investigated how teachers who were assigned subject panel head's and curriculum leader's roles perceived the student assessment reform and how they experimented with new assessment strategies in the school policy and classroom practice. The…

A tool used in student-centered education is discussion among students in small learning groups. The Western origin of student-centered education, coupled with cross-cultural differences in communication styles, may detract from its cross-cultural applicability. This study investigates how in student-centered education, students' cultural…

E-learning has become an increasingly important teaching and learning mode in educational institutions and corporate training. The evaluation of e-learning, however, is essential for the quality assurance of e-learning courses. This paper constructs a four-phase evaluation model for e-learning courses, which includes planning, development,…

Purpose: This paper is an empirical study which aims to investigate the development of social interaction and their impacts on developing learners' entrepreneurial characteristics throughout their participation in an authentic enterprise activity. Design/methodology/approach: The sample of this study was drawn from the participants of an…

Operating a quality assurance system in tertiary education is the rule rather than the exception, because of the belief that it will improve quality. However, proving this is not easy. This study examines three ways of providing the evidence: the a "priori" method, the stepwise backtracking method, and the external evaluation method. The…

In second-language writing, assessment has traditionally focused on the written products and how well (or badly) students perform in writing. Teachers dominate the assessment process as testers, while students remain passive testees. Assessment is something teachers "do to" rather than '"with" students, mainly for…

The literature suggests that peer assessment contributes to the development of student learning and promotes ownership of assessment processes. These claims emerge from research conducted primarily in Western contexts. This exploratory paper reports on the perspectives that a class of Hong Kong primary school students and their teachers have on…

This paper focuses on reconfiguring assessment processes so that they support a learning function, in addition to the more traditional measurement function. In the first half of the paper we discuss a framework for "learning-oriented assessment" derived from a project carried out in Hong Kong. We conceptualize learning-oriented…

This book contains 19 papers examining innovation in open and distance learning through development of online and World Wide Web-based learning. The following papers are included: "Innovation in Distributed Learning: Creating the Environment" (Fred Lockwood); "Innovation in Open and Distance Learning: Some Lessons from Experience…