The Relationship Between Music Performance Anxiety, Age, Self-Esteem, and Performance Outcomes in Hong Kong Music Students

Existing studies suggest that music performance anxiety can undermine the quality of performances regardless of performers’ ages. However, most of the studies have focused on professional musicians. It is crucial to know when music performance anxiety occurs in order to minimize its effects on young musicians including the ongoing psychological damage done to them. The present study is intended to investigate: 1) whether there was support for the claim that music performance anxiety has an early onset in young children; 2) to what extent music performance anxiety is associated with self-esteem; 3) whether there is support for the claim that performance outcomes are affected by one’s anxiety levels. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC) by Spielberger (1973)and the Self-Esteem Scale (SES) by Rosenburg (1965) were the major psychometric measures. A researcher-designed questionnaire was also used to collect participants’ demographic data and their experiences as well as the ways they coped with music performance anxiety. They were asked to identify their feelings based on the items adapted from the Music Performance Anxiety Inventory for Adolescents or MPAI-A (Osborne and Kenny, 2005). One hundred and seventy-four participants aged from 7 to 18 participated in the present study. Findings of the present study suggest that age is significantly related to participants’ pre-SAS and the number of symptoms. In addition, MPA was found to be more prevalent in older age ranges but no significant differences were found between different age groups. In addition, evidence from the current study supported the claim that self-esteem is negatively correlated with MPA. It was also revealed that no relation was found between one’s music performance anxiety and the quality of music one played. However, participants’ anticipated outcomes of their quality of performance may be related to music performance anxiety. Findings from the study are discussed in terms of their relevance to the Hong Kong context and their implications for practice

Is AI Changing the Rules of Academic Misconduct? An In-depth Look at Students' Perceptions of 'AI-giarism'

This pioneering study explores students' perceptions of AI-giarism, an emergent form of academic dishonesty involving AI and plagiarism, within the higher education context. A survey, undertaken by 393 undergraduate and postgraduate students from a variety of disciplines, investigated their perceptions of diverse AI-giarism scenarios. The findings portray a complex landscape of understanding, with clear disapproval for direct AI content generation, yet more ambivalent attitudes towards subtler uses of AI. The study introduces a novel instrument, as an initial conceptualization of AI-giarism, offering a significant tool for educators and policy-makers. This scale facilitates understanding and discussions around AI-related academic misconduct, aiding in pedagogical design and assessment in an era of AI integration. Moreover, it challenges traditional definitions of academic misconduct, emphasizing the need to adapt in response to evolving AI technology. Despite limitations, such as the rapidly changing nature of AI and the use of convenience sampling, the study provides pivotal insights for academia, policy-making, and the broader integration of AI technology in education

Assessment for Experiential Learning

Chan’s book explores the challenges in assessing experiential learning, deepens our understanding, and inspires readers to think critically about the purpose of assessment in experiential learning. Experiential learning has been studied and proven to be effective for student learning, particularly for the development of holistic competencies (i.e. 21st century skills, soft skills, transferable skills) considered essential for individuals to succeed in the increasingly global and technology-infused 21st century society. Universities around the world are now actively organising experiential learning activities or programmes for students to gain enriching and diversified learning experiences, however the assessment of these programmes tends to be limited, unclear, and contested. Assessment plays a central role in education policies and students’ approach to learning. But do educators know how to assess less traditional learning such as service learning, entrepreneurship, cross-discipline or cross-cultural projects, internships and student exchanges? While the current assessment landscape is replete with assessments that measure knowledge of core content areas such as mathematics, law, languages, science and social studies, there is a lack of assessments and research that focus on holistic competencies. How do we assess students’ ability to think critically, problem solve, adapt, self-manage and collaborate? Central to the discussion in this book, is the reason students are assessed and how they should be assessed to bring out their best learning outcomes.　Offering a collection of best assessment practice employed by teachers around the world, this volume brings together both theoretical and empirical research that underpins assessment; and perceptions of different stakeholders – understanding of assessment in experiential learning from students, teachers, and policymakers. The idea of assessment literacy also plays an important role in experiential learning, for example, reflection is often used in assessing students in experiential learning but how reflection literate are educators, are they aware of the ethical dilemmas that arise in assessing students? These questions are discussed in detail. The volume also introduces a quality assurance programme to recognise student development within experiential learning programmes. The book will be particularly informative to academic developers, teachers, students and community partners who struggle with the development and assessment for experiential learning, those who plan to apply for funding in experiential learning, and policymakers and senior managements seeking evidence and advice on fine-tuning curricular, assessment designs and quality assurance

Currency attack/defense with two-sided private information

A currency attack fails on its own when the speculator suffers from her financial problem. This paper extends the existing models and argues that the monetary authority?s willingness to peg and the speculator?s cost of attack are private information. Our model thus accounts for the duration of currency attack/defense, and more importantly, allows for failed attack. We employ an asymmetric war of attrition and gauge the time when the speculator stops attacking, or when the monetary authority de-pegs. Comparative static results throw light on the interest rate policy amidst the Exchange Rate Mechanism Crisis and the Asian Currency CrisisAsymmetric war of attrition; Credibility of policymakers; Failed speculative attack; Persistent effect; Two-sided private information

Assessment for Experiential Learning

Chan’s book explores the challenges in assessing experiential learning, deepens our understanding, and inspires readers to think critically about the purpose of assessment in experiential learning. Experiential learning has been studied and proven to be effective for student learning, particularly for the development of holistic competencies (i.e. 21st century skills, soft skills, transferable skills) considered essential for individuals to succeed in the increasingly global and technology-infused 21st century society. Universities around the world are now actively organising experiential learning activities or programmes for students to gain enriching and diversified learning experiences, however the assessment of these programmes tends to be limited, unclear, and contested. Assessment plays a central role in education policies and students’ approach to learning. But do educators know how to assess less traditional learning such as service learning, entrepreneurship, cross-discipline or cross-cultural projects, internships and student exchanges? While the current assessment landscape is replete with assessments that measure knowledge of core content areas such as mathematics, law, languages, science and social studies, there is a lack of assessments and research that focus on holistic competencies. How do we assess students’ ability to think critically, problem solve, adapt, self-manage and collaborate? Central to the discussion in this book, is the reason students are assessed and how they should be assessed to bring out their best learning outcomes.　Offering a collection of best assessment practice employed by teachers around the world, this volume brings together both theoretical and empirical research that underpins assessment; and perceptions of different stakeholders – understanding of assessment in experiential learning from students, teachers, and policymakers. The idea of assessment literacy also plays an important role in experiential learning, for example, reflection is often used in assessing students in experiential learning but how reflection literate are educators, are they aware of the ethical dilemmas that arise in assessing students? These questions are discussed in detail. The volume also introduces a quality assurance programme to recognise student development within experiential learning programmes. The book will be particularly informative to academic developers, teachers, students and community partners who struggle with the development and assessment for experiential learning, those who plan to apply for funding in experiential learning, and policymakers and senior managements seeking evidence and advice on fine-tuning curricular, assessment designs and quality assurance

A Novel Method for Designing M-Band Linear-Phase Perfrect-Reconstruction filter Banks

This paper studies the design of M-channel perfect-reconstruction (PR) linear-phase (LP) filter banks (FBs) with M=2k using a tree-structured FB. It is based on a observation of Fliege(1995) that the length of the analysis filters is decreased by a factor of two when the depth of the tree is increased by one, while its transition bandwidth is increased by the same factor. A lattice-based 2-channel LP FB is chosen because the frequency responses of the lowpass and highpass analysis (synthesis) filters can be designed to be closely symmetric to the other around π/2. By properly selecting the filter length, transition bandwidth. and stopband attenuation of the 2-channel PR LP FBs at each level of the tree structure, it is possible to design uniform PR LP FB with excellent frequency characteristic and much lower system delay.published_or_final_versio

Acoustical differences in vocal characteristics between Cantonese and English produced by Cantonese-English bilingual adult speakers

Includes bibliographical references (p. 25-27)."A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, June 30, 2010."Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 2010.Vocal characteristics associated with 40 (20 male and 20 female) adult Cantonese-English bilingual speakers were examined. Fundamental frequency (F0) values and four parameters calculated from the long-term average spectrum (LTAS) including the first spectral peak (FSP), mean spectral energy (MSE), spectral tilt (ST) and high frequency energy (HFE) were obtained from connected speech samples produced in each language by the speakers. Acoustical measurements were measured with PRAAT and compared between languages and genders. The results indicated that female speakers had significantly higher F0 values in speaking English than Cantonese. Bilingual speakers exhibited comparable FSP values, but with significantly greater MSE value and lower ST value in Cantonese than English. The findings implied that, even with the same phonatory apparatus, language being spoken posed effect on speakers’ voice quality.published_or_final_versionSpeech and Hearing SciencesBachelorBachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science

A class of biorthogonal nonuniform cosine-modulated filter bankswith lower system delay

In this paper, the theory and design of a class of perfect-reconstruction (PR) biorthogonal nonuniform cosine-modulated filter banks (CMFB) is proposed. It is based on a recombination or merging structure previously proposed by the authors [1]. By relaxing the original CMFB and the recombination transmultiplexer (TMUX) to be biorthogonal, nonuniform CMFBs with lower system delay can be obtained. This increases the possible choices of the prototype filters and greatly reduces the overall system delay of the nonuniform filter bank. A new method is also introduced to suppress the spurious response resulting from the mismatch in the transition bands of the two biorthogonal CMFBs. Design example shows that nonuniform CMFBs with good stopband attenuation, lower system delay and implementation complexity can be realized using the proposed method.published_or_final_versio

Theory and design of a class of cosine-modulated non-uniform filter banks

In this paper, the theory and design of a class of PR cosine-modulated nonuniform filter bank is proposed. It is based on a structure previously proposed by Cox, where the outputs of a uniform filter bank is combined or merged by means of the synthesis section of another filter bank with smaller channel number. Simplifications are imposed on this structure so that the design procedure can be considerably simplified. Due to the use of CMFB as the original and recombination filter banks, excellent filter quality and low design and implementation complexities can be achieved. Problems with these merging techniques such as spectrum inversion, equivalent filter representations and protrusion cancellation are also addressed. As the merging is performed after the decimation, the arithmetic complexity is lower than other conventional approaches. Design examples show that PR nonuniform filter banks with high stopband attenuation and low design and implementation complexities can be obtained by the proposed method.published_or_final_versio

Deconstructing Student Perceptions of Generative AI (GenAI) through an Expectancy Value Theory (EVT)-based Instrument

This study examines the relationship between student perceptions and their intention to use generative AI in higher education. Drawing on Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT), a questionnaire was developed to measure students' knowledge of generative AI, perceived value, and perceived cost. A sample of 405 students participated in the study, and confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate the constructs. The results indicate a strong positive correlation between perceived value and intention to use generative AI, and a weak negative correlation between perceived cost and intention to use. As we continue to explore the implications of generative AI in education and other domains, it is crucial to carefully consider the potential long-term consequences and the ethical dilemmas that may arise from widespread adoption