Examining the key stakeholders’ perceptions of student learning: towards a paradigm shift in secondary education in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

The current New Senior Secondary curriculum was implemented in Hong Kong in 2009. This educational reform promotes a paradigm shift in learning and teaching strategies, with the ultimate goal to prepare secondary school students for meeting the changing needs of the workplace and for lifelong learning. This paper reports empirical findings by investigating the impact of such a paradigm shift in education on student learning through comparing the perceptions of different stakeholders (i.e., school heads, teachers and students). The data were collected from a self-reported questionnaire, involving 91 secondary schools, 1,439 school heads, Key Learning Areas coordinators/panels heads, Secondary 6 teachers, and 4614 Secondary 6 students. Key findings are: (1) seven dimensions of student learning were identified (in terms of generic skills, personal growth and well-being, values and attitudes) and these are regarded as the important paradigm shift in the secondary education curriculum; (2) school heads were more optimistic than Key Learning Areas coordinators/panel heads and frontline teachers about the performance of Secondary 6 students; and (3) Secondary 6 students had a more positive outlook than their teachers regarding world views, pluralistic views, communication skills, critical thinking and creativity. Implications and recommendations are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Paradigm shift
• new secondary school curriculum
• educational reform
• learning and teaching
• Hong Kong

Acknowledgments

The study was supported by a grant from the Education Bureau of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Any findings and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funder.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. ‘Thinking Schools’ refers to “a school system that can develop creative thinking skills, lifelong learning passion and nationalistic commitment in the young”. “Learning Nation” is about creating “a national culture, where creativity and innovation flourishes at every level of the society” (Ng, 2008, p. 6).

2. In this study, we categorized student achievement into three groups. Group 1 are schools with highest average student achievement, Group 2 the next highest and Group 3 is the lowest.

3. The types of schools can be found in Hong Kong Fact Sheet on Education (March 2015), http://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/factsheets/docs/education.pdf.

4. A metric invariance test was then used to evaluate whether the factor loadings of the latent structure were equal. If a latent factor has equal loadings across groups, it provides support for the assumption that each group responded to the items in the same way.

5. Scalar invariance was then assessed to examine the reasonableness of the equal observed item intercepts across groups.

6. Invariance between models was accepted if the differences in CFI values between models are less than .01 (Cheung & Rensvold, 2002).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Education Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government (HKSAR).

Notes on contributors

Alan C. K. Cheung

Alan C. K. Cheung is currently Chair and Professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Policy and Director of the Centre for University and School Partnership (CUSP) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.  His research areas include school reform, reading interventions, and research reviews.

Chrysa P. C. Keung

Chrysa P. C. Keung is currently Post-doctoral Fellow in the Centre for University & School Partnership (CUSP) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research areas include teacher leadership, culture and pedagogy, curriculum beliefs and teacher knowledge.

Barley S. Y. Mak

Barley S. Y. Mak is currently Associate College Head of United College and formerly the founding Director of the Centre for Enhancing English Learning and Teaching (CEELT) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research areas include language teaching and learning, language testing and assessment, curriculum evaluation and teacher professional development.