As one of the essential skills for success in work and studies, English communication is often made a key component in the GE curriculum of tertiary study programmes. In addition to the provision of required English proficiency courses, many tertiary institutions have established English centres of some description to promote English learning on campus. Yet from students' perspective, what kinds of programmes and activities should be offered, and how they feel about these initiatives is not very widely discussed in the existing literature. This paper aims to address these questions with practical experiences gained from a project to establish an English language enhancement centre by one self-financing tertiary institution in Hong Kong. Funded by the Quality Enhancement Support Scheme (QESS), the centre, titled the Centre for Academic and Professional Language Enhancement (CAPLE), was set up in March 2016. Cognizant of the benefits of life-wide learning, independent learning and collaborative peer learning, CAPLE offers a series of workshops and various kinds of English and culture learning activities that adopt these pedagogical approaches.Centre usage figures and user feedback were continuously collected for evaluative purposes. Data collected through student diaries, online surveys, usage records of the online programmes and other resources and a focus group interview showed varying levels of popularity of different types of workshops/activities, suggesting there is a need for programme designers to have a more realistic view about students' actual English learning needs and learning motivation. Recommendations are made accordingly for more economical use of resources.Keyword: English language enhancement, programme design, instrumental motivation, Hong Kong, higher education Background Inadequate English Proficiency for Tertiary StudiesUnder the forces of globalization, English has become ever more important as a medium of communication for business, academic, professional and social purposes, and there is little doubt that mastery of the language can provide a competitive edge for college graduates in their future pursuits. However, English is often treated as a school subject with a set syllabus in secondary schools in Hong Kong, which may make it difficult for students to see its relevance to their future careers, further studies or social life. Misunderstanding of the nature of the subject may lead to the adoption of an inappropriate and ineffective approach to English learning, resulting in a vicious cycle of frustration and demotivation. Therefore, as students reach a tertiary level of study, many of them find their English inadequate for the heightened demand for a strong command of the language for academic and professional purposes, especially for those who come from schools with Chinese as the medium of instruction. This is reflected by their struggle in courses requiring substantial use of English and in obtaining the required results in English tests and examinations; the problem is more ...
Abstract:Studies have revealed that many graduates have jobs unrelated to the subjects they majored in at tertiary level. Other
To academics of higher education institutes, motiving, enhancing and improving student learning have never been easy. Different types of course work or continuous assessment or assessment for learning activities are designed to lead students to achieve the intended learning outcomes of respective courses. Depending on the nature of courses, these activities vary and they can either be done individually or in groups. The question is whether these activities can achieve their stated goals or if they can, how much these activities can lead students to achieve the intended learning outcomes as reflected by a summative assessment, normally it is a timed final exam or a take-home final essay. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the correlations between formative assessment activities and the summative assessment. Data of an introductory statistics course of different cohorts of a private degree-granting institute in Hong Kong were used in this study. The results indicate that individual assignments have a strong relationship with the exam score, while group projects do not. More surprisingly, group projects are negatively related to exam scores. The implication is that academics should rethink how to make group work a better and fairer assessment for individual student’s contribution.
Over-education has long been an issue among developed economies in the western world for decades. Researchers have conducted studies and estimated the ratio of over-education of their respective countries; however, there was not much done, if any, for Hong Kong. The purposes of this study are: first, to estimate the proportion of over-education in Hong Kong; second, to compare differences across different demographic factors including majors of studies, years of work experience, income levels, academic qualification levels, industries, and gender. The data set consists of 279 respondents. The subjective (self-reported) over-education rate for current job is 34.1 percent. At the 0.05 significance level, the population proportion, or overall subjective over-education rate in Hong Kong is estimated at between 28.54 percent and 39.66 percent. The sample proportion of objective over-education, measured by the excess of highest qualification over minimum requirement for the current job, is 49.1 percent. At the 0.05 significance level, the population proportion of objective over-education is estimated to be between 43.23 percent and 54.97 percent. The correlation between subjective and objective over-education is 0.342. It is not a very strong positive relationship, but it is significant (p = 0.000). Differences between the two are also significant (p = 0.000). While over-education appears to be a serious issue, the sample shows an objective under-education rate of 2.5 percent. Overall, differences of demographic factors are mostly insignificant, but multiple comparisons among subgroups for subjective over-education have found that medicine, dentistry and health majors are significantly different from other majors. Results of this study will narrow the research gap for Hong Kong on over-education. It also opens the door for future research and deeper study concerning over-education in Hong Kong between graduates of government-funded and privately-funded higher education institutes, across different majors and industries. These will not only have substantial financial implications on government spending on higher education but also provide directions for students' choices.
The smartphone penetration rate among people aged 15 and above in Hong Kong stood at close to 90 per cent in 2018. While the demand for smartphones has been increasing, the smartphone market in Hong Kong is highly competitive. Smartphone firms strive to maintain their customers by encouraging repurchases through launching newer models. The marketing cost of keeping an existing customer is well below that of finding a new customer. Therefore, how to motivate current customers to repurchase newer editions of the same brand is a major marketing concern for most companies. The purpose of this paper is to explore the causality between service quality and repurchase intention via customer satisfaction and attitudinal loyalty. Data from a sample of 200 Hong Kong smartphone users aged 18 and above confirm that customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between service quality and attitudinal loyalty that eventually affects repurchase intention. The percentage of the direct effect of service quality on attitudinal loyalty demonstrated a significant partial mediation of customer satisfaction. The results of this study provide important theoretical and managerial implications for researchers and practitioners of the smartphone industry not only in Hong Kong but also around the world.
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