This article is an overview and summary of the findings from a General Research Fund project funded (2012-2014) by the Research Grants Council of the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong to investigate cross cultural understanding of ageing and learning by seniors in Hong Kong and Australia. Results have been published separately in…

Governments' anxieties about ageing populations are mostly concerned with the costs of welfare, care and health provision which all have to be paid for by an ever dwindling working population. However, research in later life learning indicates the significant role that lifelong learning can play in promoting mental well-being and resilience, and…

This paper is about a quantitative study which has examined and elucidated the conceptualizations of ageing and learning by a group of elders in Hong Kong. In more specific terms, the study has investigated how this group of older people understood the meaning of successful ageing and elder learning in the context of their later lives. Based on…

Building on previous listening strategy research, the author aimed to explore the differences between Chinese high-proficiency listeners (HLs) and low-proficiency listeners (LLs) on their strategy use, problems, and motivation in native language (L1) listening. It involved 1,290 Grade 7 and 1,515 Grade 9 students. Both quantitative and qualitative…

This paper reports on the findings of a study looking at students' motivation to engage in self-access language learning (SALL) while taking an English for Academic Purposes course which contains a substantial integrated SALL component. To-date there has been limited research into the motivation of such students but it is an important area of…

Can mastery and performance-approach goals predict distance learners' learning and achievement in different learning situations over an academic year? Using a prospective longitudinal design, the current study examined this research question using a cohort of distance learners in Hong Kong. Two hundred and seventy-two distance learners completed…

In this study, a new physics education programme is specifically developed for a famous theme park in Hong Kong to provide community-based science learning to her visitors, involving her three newly constructed rides. We make innovative use of digital technologies in this programme and incorporate a rigorous evaluation of the learning…

This article aims to address the practical question of whether there is educational value to embedding second-language (L2) learning experiences in intergenerational contexts. In particular, a case study was conducted of a novel, university-based ESL program in Hong Kong in which a group of older adult volunteers with a high level of English…

This paper draws upon a small-scale investigation to shed light on the perceptions of successful ageing by a group of senior adults in Hong Kong. It also identifies attributes that are associated with ageing well and examines the extent to which education or learning is perceived as important in the ageing process. To this end, the research has…

This pilot study is to examine whether it is valuable to implement jazz choral practice in Hong Kong primary school setting. The findings can serve as a reference to explore the possibilities of promoting jazz education in Asian countries or in China. The participants were 70 public primary school students from grade 2 to 5 in Hong Kong. All…

How students understand, feel about and respond to assessment might contribute significantly to learning behaviour and academic achievement. This paper reviews studies that have used a relatively new self-reported survey questionnaire ("Students' Conceptions of Assessment"--SCoA) about student perceptions and understandings of…

This study investigated the relationships among Hong Kong Chinese students' reading attainment in Chinese and English, their attitudes toward reading, and their self-concept as readers. The sample consisted of 1,232 fourth-grade students from thirty-eight primary schools. Predictably, the students' reading attainment was better when tested in…

Background: The latest report by the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), issued in 2006, indicated that Hong Kong Primary 4 Chinese students outperformed children from 45 countries and provinces in reading comprehension tests that measured their higher-order reading proficiency. However, the study gave no indication of how…

This study aims to examine how and why students transform in terms of learning motivation in learning the Cantonese opera with a teacher-artist partnership approach in Hong Kong schools. An artist and seven teachers from four schools collaborated to teach the genre for eight weeks. Students' learning motivation changes in Cantonese opera was…

Learning strategies and affective factors could have a profound impact on student standardized mathematics performance. This study investigated gender differences in affective factors, learning strategies, and preferred learning situations, and how these variables affect math achievement of 15 year olds in the United States and Hong Kong on the…