Perceived parental involvement influences students’ academic buoyancy and adaptability: the mediating roles of goal orientations

Academic buoyancy and adaptability (i.e., student capacities to deal with difficulties and challenges in daily school lives and to make appropriate cognitive, behavioral as well as affective adjustments in interacting with new, uncertain, and/or changing situations, circumstances, and conditions) can help learners regulate and protect themselves in the failure-prone learning environment. This study examined how students’ perceptions of parental academic involvement and their goal orientations were related to their academic buoyancy and adaptability in mathematics learning. We recruited a sample of 1,164 Chinese junior high school students. Using structural equation modeling, the results indicated that after controlling for family socioeconomic status and gender, perceived parental involvement was positively related to the students’ academic buoyancy and adaptability. Furthermore, parental involvement was significantly associated with students’ mastery and performance-approach goal orientations, which further partially mediated the relationship between parental involvement and academic buoyancy and adaptability. However, the mediating role of a performance-avoidance goal orientation in this relationship was not significant. Findings highlight the important roles that parenting practices and individual achievement motivation play in the development of academic buoyancy and adaptability in the Chinese context. Future research directions and implications are discussed

Factors Influencing Teachers’ Implementation of a Reformed Instructional Model in China from the Theory of Planned Behavior Perspective: A Multiple Case Study

It is difficult for curriculum reform to achieve sustainable success without support from teachers in the front line. The authors of this paper investigated teacher factors behind the successful implementation of a reformed instructional model, the Dao Jiang Ping (DJP) model, in China. This study is part of a longitudinal project (2012–2017) that reported the level of DJP implementation and explored factors that influence teachers’ implementation. This paper mainly focuses on the latter. Six teachers were examined to look for reasons behind their different levels of DJP implementation. The theory of planned behavior (TPB), which has been widely used to explain and predict people’s behavior or intention to perform a behavior, is used as the theoretical framework for the study. Referring to the TPB framework, this study summarized factors into individual factors, perceived social factors and perceived contextual factors. Furthermore, the authors suggest extending the TPB framework by including teachers’ understanding of the reform ideas to facilitate its application in order to explore factors in reform contexts. Lastly, this study discusses several important factors that help teachers to implement new teaching methodologies continually, thus promoting the sustainable implementation of reforms

How Chinese teachers teach mathematics and pursue professional development: perspectives from contemporary international research

This chapter aims to provide readers with a comprehensive review of related literature on how Chinese mathematics teachers pursue pre-service training and in-service professional development, and how they teach in classrooms. The results suggest that China (Mainland) has established a highly unique and unified pre-service mathematics teacher education system; pre-service teachers learned more advanced mathematics courses and showed better motivation toward their training as compared with other countries such as the UK and US. China has also established its unique and well-institutionalized teacher professional development system for in-service teachers, with Teaching Research Groups (TRG) at the school level and Teaching Research Office at different government levels playing a crucial role. About teaching, it was found that Chinese mathematics teachers planned their lessons carefully; they adopted more whole-class teaching strategies, emphasized two basics (basic knowledge and basic skills), teacher-student interaction and students’ engagement academically and the method of teaching with variation, and assigned homework daily for reinforcement as well as assessment of students’ learning. Some issues and suggestions on future research in these areas are raised at the end of the chapte

The Evolution of Mathematical Thinking in Chinese Mathematics Education

Mathematical thinking (MT) has been one of the most important goals for mathematics education as it can support sustainable mathematics learning. Its role in school mathematics has recently been explicitly identified as one of “Four Basics„ in the latest national curriculum standard for compulsory education, which is seen as one of the prominent features of Chinese mathematics education. This paper reviewed definitions, descriptions, and explanations from a historical perspective and aimed to provide a comprehensive and contemporary conceptualization for MT in a Chinese context, which can be applied as a comparison to MT in English works. To achieve this, document analysis was applied in this study. Major official documents, papers, and books were reviewed to see the process of MT conceptualization given by the policy makers and researchers. Results indicated that MT places more emphasis on the process of mathematical methods application in problem solving, such as the method of combination of symbolic and graphic mathematics. Mathematical thought is also recommended by Chinese researchers to help students think like mathematicians. Another major characteristic is that the classification of major types of MT is usually focused on that which can make the concept more understandable

Pattern and Dynamics of Teacher Emotions during Teaching: A Case Study of a Senior Secondary Mathematics Teacher

Understanding the emotional dimension of classroom practices benefits sustainable education. However, the dynamic nature of teacher emotions during teaching remains understudied. To acquire an “in-depth” description of the emotional phenomena during teaching, a case study was adopted to examine the pattern and dynamics of a senior secondary mathematics teacher’s teaching-related emotions. Seven new mathematics lessons were observed and videotaped, and three video-stimulated, post-lesson teacher interviews were conducted. Based on appraisal theories of emotions, thematic analysis and content analysis were mainly used to analyse the data. The study revealed that the teacher most frequently experienced happiness/satisfaction as positive emotions and confusion/surprise as negative emotions. The emotions followed a three-stage process: perceptions, multilevel appraisals, and responses. The teacher most often perceived her students’ cognitive accuracy and adopted goal/need conduciveness/attainment, the discrepancy from expectations, and causal attribution as core appraisal dimensions. Teacher emotions in classrooms were also often hierarchical and cumulative, shifting from more negative at the beginning of a new semester to more positive at the middle of the semester. This study shed light on the dynamic development of teacher emotions, extending the theories and process models of emotions from the psychological field to educational research and facilitating teachers’ sustainable professional development

Pattern and Dynamics of Teacher Emotions during Teaching: A Case Study of a Senior Secondary Mathematics Teacher

Understanding the emotional dimension of classroom practices benefits sustainable education. However, the dynamic nature of teacher emotions during teaching remains understudied. To acquire an “in-depth” description of the emotional phenomena during teaching, a case study was adopted to examine the pattern and dynamics of a senior secondary mathematics teacher’s teaching-related emotions. Seven new mathematics lessons were observed and videotaped, and three video-stimulated, post-lesson teacher interviews were conducted. Based on appraisal theories of emotions, thematic analysis and content analysis were mainly used to analyse the data. The study revealed that the teacher most frequently experienced happiness/satisfaction as positive emotions and confusion/surprise as negative emotions. The emotions followed a three-stage process: perceptions, multilevel appraisals, and responses. The teacher most often perceived her students’ cognitive accuracy and adopted goal/need conduciveness/attainment, the discrepancy from expectations, and causal attribution as core appraisal dimensions. Teacher emotions in classrooms were also often hierarchical and cumulative, shifting from more negative at the beginning of a new semester to more positive at the middle of the semester. This study shed light on the dynamic development of teacher emotions, extending the theories and process models of emotions from the psychological field to educational research and facilitating teachers’ sustainable professional development

Researching Diversity in Education in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

Special Issue: Affirming Diversity for Social and Educational JusticeThis introductory article for the special issue of “The International Journal of Diversity in Education” weaves the research interests and histories of members of the local organizing committee for the Fifteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations held at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in July 2015. These members share a common research context—diversity and education in Hong Kong and the article aims to reflect that, although from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and concerns with different sectors and approaches to education, our collective interest centers on education and social justice in Hong Kong. Issues explored in K-12 schooling range across: inclusive education, Chinese language support for special education needs children and non- Chinese speaking (NCS) learners, and multicultural education. Issues explored in higher education focus on the academic workforce in Hong Kong, both in terms of internationalization policy and academic mobility in professional education, and with regard to gender equity and the role of women in the academy

Addressing the challenge of legitimate international comparisons of classroom practice

C1 - Refereed Journal Articl