Education: Journal Articles

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Open Access
Traversing the ‘third space’ of learning communities for initial teacher education students: using an ePortfolio to scaffold practice learning experiences
(2025) Astall , Chris; Fletcher , Jo; Everatt , John
This paper reports on a study on Initial Teacher Education (ITE) student teachers’ experiences and perceptions of using an ePortfolio in evidencing professional practice experiences in New Zealand primary schools. A survey was used to gather data from student teachers in a three-year bachelor’s programme. Across the year levels, 169 students responded. This mixed methods study found there is a need to navigate the boundary crossing between the school and the university to continue to develop strategies for developing working partnerships that support student teacher practice learning. It is apparent that the knowledges, mentoring practices and competing needs and requirements of the teacher education institution, school and educational policies should be reconsidered, and the use of the ePortfolio in the programme reframed.
Open Access
Response to intervention within a multi-tiered systems of support: a missing element in the literacy curricula, policies, and practices in the Philippines
(Frontiers Media SA, online-publication-date) Bautista, Judy
International assessments in reading appear to be a strong driver of educational efforts within nations who participate in these tests. While some countries debate the declaration of educational crises within their jurisdictions based on these assessments, the case of the Philippines’ performance appear to be collectively recognized by Filipinos as existent, and therefore, needs to be boldly confronted. Correspondingly, educational reforms were made, but evidence-based decisions are yet to be seen. This brief argues that revisiting the research evidence is vital for policy and curricular changes so that factors are identified, and consequently, analyzed once progress monitoring shows how powerful or weak they are in influencing students’ literacy outcomes. This brief ultimately recommends the potential for a response to intervention within multi-tiered systems of support.
Open Access
Engaging with happy‐sounding music promotes helping behavior in 18‐month‐olds
(Wiley, 2022) SIU, Tik Sze Carrey; Ho C
Engaging with music fosters prosocial responding in infants and toddlers. In this pilot study, we examined whether music that expresses contrasting emotions (happy vs. sad) was associated with toddlers’ helpfulness. Seventy-five 18-month-olds from Hong Kong China were randomly assigned to engage with music with an experimenter in one of two conditions: happy or sad-sounding music. After the musical engagement task, toddlers from both conditions completed the same set of helping tasks. For instrumental (action-based) helping, toddlers were significantly more helpful after engaging with happy-sounding music than with sad-sounding music. Our initial findings suggest that cues linked to happy- and sad-sounding music influence toddlers’ prosocial responses.
Open Access
Interrupting the Pattern: Knowing Why and Respecting Who We Teach
(2020) LaVenia, Kristina; Huziak-Clark T; Brodeur K; Galletta Horner C
Although research has identified culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) as vitally important for educators in today’s increasingly diverse classrooms, few studies exist to explore the development of both pre- and in-service teachers’ knowledge about and self-efficacy for CRP. This mixed methods study examined pre- and in-service teachers’ perceptions of CRP as well as their CRP self-efficacy. Both pre-service and in-service teachers participated in professional development aimed at improved knowledge and self-efficacy for CRP. Dependent-samples t-tests revealed positive and statistically significant changes in participants’ CRP self-efficacy. Qualitative analyses demonstrated participants worked to better understand their core values (know why they teach), identified a need to better understand their students (respect who they teach), and recognized high expectations for all students as a core principle of CRP.
Open Access
School phone ban one year on: our student survey reveals mixed feelings about its success
(2025) Smith, Jennifer Pearl; Swit C; Hapuku A; Cook H
Open Access
Visuospatial perspective-taking in social-emotional development: enhancing young children’s mind and emotion understanding via block building training
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2022) Caldwell MP; Cheung H; Cheung S-K; Li J-B; Carrey Siu T-S
Background: Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to represent one's own and others' mental states, and emotion understanding involves appropriately comprehending and responding to others' emotional cues in social interactions. Individual differences in mind and emotion understanding have been associated strongly with verbal ability and interaction and, as such, existing training for children's ToM and emotion understanding is mostly language-based. Building on the literature on embodied cognition, this study proposes that mind and emotion understanding could be facilitated by one's visuospatial experience in simulating other's frames of reference. Methods: This protocol consists of two training studies. Study 1 will examine if visuospatial perspective-taking training promotes ToM and emotion understanding. Participants will consist of 96 4.5-year-olds and will be randomly assigned to one of two training groups: the altercentric block building group (trained to be visuospatial perspective-takers), or the egocentric block building group (no visuospatial perspective-taking is involved). Study 2 will compare the engagement of visuospatial perspective-taking and verbal interaction in the development of mind and emotion understanding. Participants will consist of 120 4.5-year-olds. They will be randomly assigned to one of three training groups: the socialized altercentric block building (both visuospatial perspective-taking and verbal interaction), the parallel altercentric block building (visuospatial perspective-taking only), or the paired dialogic reading (verbal interaction only). Conclusions: In terms of theoretical implications, the potential causal relationship between visuospatial perspective-taking and ToM and emotion understanding may shed new insights on what underlies the development of mental state understanding. The findings of this study also have practical implications: researchers and educators may popularize visuospatial perspective-taking training in the form of block-building games if it is found to be effective in complementing conventional language-based theory-of-mind training.
Open Access
The student well-being model: A conceptual framework for the development of student well-being indicators
(Informa UK Limited, 2014) Soutter , Anne Kathryn; O’Steen , Billy; Gilmore , Alison
The importance of student well-being to positive youth development is widely accepted, despite little consensus on what it means for youth to be well in school. The student well-being model (SWBM) provides a framework for the development of student well-being indicators based upon a case study of a New Zealand secondary school involving critical analysis of New Zealand education policies, and qualitative investigation into New Zealand students’ and teachers’ perspectives and experiences on well-being. This exercise illustrates a process that can be replicated elsewhere to capture the academic, social and cultural milieu of individual schools and to support effective monitoring of student well-being in practice. Future research agendas based on the SWBM, such as psychometric analysis of the SWBM, as well as explorations of its viability as a practical pedagogical tool to facilitate reflection upon, identification of, communication about, and enactment and monitoring of student well-being are discussed.
Open Access
Arts and Creativity in Hong Kong Kindergartens: A Document Analysis of Quality Review Reports
(Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2022) Yeung , Jerry; Bautista , Alfredo; SIU, Tik Sze Carrey; Tam , Po-Chi; Wong , Kit-Mei
Abstract In Hong Kong, the Education Bureau (EDB) regularly assesses the quality of services provided by publicly subsidized kindergartens to children aged 3 to 6. Quality Review (QR) reports are written by government officials and published on the EDB’s website. This study analyzes the feedback pertaining to Arts and Creativity to better understand the role this learning area plays in Hong Kong kindergartens. Lexical and content analyses were applied on 164 QR reports published between 2017 and 2020. Findings showed that: (1) the role of Arts and Creativity in the QR reports is relatively minor, which suggests that this learning area is somewhat secondary in Hong Kong kindergartens; (2) presence of the various art forms differs significantly, with Music and Visual Arts being more frequent than Drama and especially Dance; and (3) classroom activities seem to be teacher-centered, product-oriented, and reproductive. Findings suggest that the Arts and Creativity pedagogies enacted in Hong Kong kindergartens are not fully consistent with the official kindergarten Curriculum Guide, which draws on a Western conceptualization of creativity in the arts. We argue that this curriculum/practice gap reveals the need for local stakeholders to embrace a “glocalization” paradigm. Limitations, future research, and implications are discussed.
Open Access
Moving Beyond Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t: Readiness for Change
(Florida Educational Research Association, online-publication-date) LaVenia, Kristina N.; Lang , Laura B.
We know little about the supports principals need to lead change. This lack of knowledge is unfortunate, because principal leadership is understood to be critical for successful school reform. Using a randomized control trial, we tested whether the opportunity to participate in a year-long, content-focused professional development intervention would help principals feel prepared to provide instructional leadership for the transition to new standards. Results suggest professional development was impactful for principals’ self-reported attitudes toward facilitating the implementation of new standards. Study findings offer support for use of professional development as a means of building principals’ ability to lead change efforts.
Open Access
Longitudinal relations among teacher-student closeness, cognitive flexibility, intrinsic reading motivation, and reading achievement
(Elsevier BV, 2022) Huang , Jing; SIU, Tik Sze Carrey; Cheung , Him
This study examines the roles of cognitive flexibility and reading motivation in explaining the longitudinal link between teacher-student closeness and reading achievement. The investigation is motivated by the fact that cognitive flexibility and reading motivation have been shown to be correlates of teacher-student relationship and reading achievement, yet their mediating roles are less well understood. The current study uses a sample of 17,342 students (8463 females; mean age = 73.42 months) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study with different ethnic backgrounds. A declining trend of teacher-student closeness from kindergarten to Grade 2 was found. Teacher-student closeness at kindergarten was positively associated with reading achievement at Grade 4 and the effect was mediated by cognitive flexibility and reading motivation at Grade 3. Declining closeness from kindergarten to Grade 2 was not related to the other associations. Consistent with the extended attachment view, these findings highlight the importance of an early supportive teacher-student relationship in promoting flexibility in thinking and interest in reading. This enhances subsequent reading performance in the middle elementary school years.
Open Access
P300 as a correlate of false beliefs and false statements
(Wiley, 2023) Wang Y; SIU, Tik Sze Carrey; Cheung H
Introduction: This study investigates P300 as a component for false belief and false statement processing with and without a communicative context. The purpose is to understand why P300 has been shown to be commonly involved in false belief and lie processing. Methods: Participants were presented with a story in which the protagonist holds a true belief and makes a true statement of it (true belief), holds a false belief and makes a true statement (false belief), or holds a true belief and makes a false statement (false statement) while electroencephalograms were recorded. Results: In Experiment 1, featuring a solitary protagonist, stronger posterior P300 was shown in the false belief condition than the true belief and false statement condition. With the installation of a communicative context by including a second character listening to the protagonist, Experiment 2 showed enhanced frontal P300 in the false statement condition compared to the true belief and false belief condition. A late slow wave was more prominent in the false belief condition than in the other two conditions in Experiment 2. Conclusion: The present results suggest a situation‐dependent nature of P300. The signal captures the discrepancy between belief and reality more readily than that between belief and words under a noncommunicative context. It becomes more sensitive to the discrepancy between belief and words than that between belief and reality in a communicative situation with an audience, which makes any false statement practically a lie.
Open Access
Gendered pathways to socioemotional competencies in very young children
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2024) Liu Q; Huang J; Caldwell MP; Cheung SK; Cheung H; Siu, Tik Sze Carrey
Parent–child and teacher–child relationship closeness have been shown to be crucial for children’s development of socioemotional competencies from preschool to school-age stages. However, less is known about the importance of developing close relationships with young infants and toddlers attending childcare group settings for their early socioemotional development. The current study aimed to address this gap and to explore how child gender may influence the associations. Participants included 378 Hong Kong Chinese children (196 girls; M age = 22.05 months, SD = 9.81 months) enrolled in childcare centres, along with their parents and teachers. Parents reported on children’s socioemotional competencies as well as their relationship closeness with children; teachers reported on their relationship closeness with children. Multiple group structural equation modelling was used to analyse the results. The findings showed that both parent–child and teacher–child closeness were positively associated with children’s social competence, while teacher–child closeness was negatively associated with children’s anxiety behaviour. Parents of girls reported greater parent–child closeness, higher levels of social competence, and higher levels of anxiety behaviours compared to parents of boys. Furthermore, teacher–child closeness was significantly associated with social competence exclusively among girls, while parent–child closeness was significantly associated with anxiety behaviours solely among boys. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of child gender in influencing the associations between parent–child closeness, teacher–child closeness, and children’s socioemotional competencies in the earliest years.
Open Access
Infants’ sensitivity to emotion in music and emotion-action understanding
(Public Library of Science (PLoS), online-publication-date) SIU, Tik Sze Carrey; Cheung H; Chao L
Emerging evidence has indicated infants’ early sensitivity to acoustic cues in music. Do they interpret these cues in emotional terms to represent others’ affective states? The present study examined infants’ development of emotional understanding of music with a violation of-expectation paradigm. Twelve- and 20-month-olds were presented with emotionally concordant and discordant music-face displays on alternate trials. The 20-month-olds, but not the 12-month-olds, were surprised by emotional incongruence between musical and facial expressions, suggesting their sensitivity to musical emotion. In a separate non-music task, only the 20-month-olds were able to use an actress’s affective facial displays to predict her subsequent action. Interestingly, for the 20-month-olds, such emotion-action understanding correlated with sensitivity to musical expressions measured in the first task. These two abilities however did not correlate with family income, parental estimation of language and communicative skills, and quality of parent-child interaction. The findings suggest that sensitivity to musical emotion and emotion-action understanding may be supported by a generalised common capacity to represent emotion from social cues, which lays a foundation for later social-communicative development.
Open Access
A longitudinal reciprocal relation between theory of mind and language
(Elsevier BV, 2022) SIU, Tik Sze Carrey; Cheung, H
Ninety-seven Cantonese-speaking 4-year-olds were tested three times over 6 months on belief based theory of mind (ToM), general language ability, complement syntax, and verb factivity understanding. These capacities were assessed with carefully designed tasks to minimize overlaps in measurement. Results showed that early general language predicted later performances on the unexpected content and belief-emotion ToM tasks, and early change-of-location predicted later discrimination of strong factive and non-factive verbs but not general language and complementation. The present results provide longitudinal evidence for a reciprocal relation between language and ToM development: General language ability supports the development of belief based ToM; belief-based ToM facilitates the learning of verb semantics specialized in communicating mind-reality (mis)match.
Open Access
So near yet so far away: The colonisation and decolonisation of New Zealand and New Caledonia.
(2024) Small, David
Despite their geographic proximity, New Zealand and New Caledonia experienced from the outset quite different forms of colonialism at the hands of Britain and France. However, the history of the two countries also reveals interesting parallels. This article explores some of these similarities and differences and discusses their implications for decolonisation struggles led by the indigenous Kanak and Māori peoples. The study points to differences in how sovereignty was acquired, identifies similarities in the colonial strategies of initial military conquest and land dispossession, and highlights contrasts between the British assimilationist approach in New Zealand and France's segregationist policies in New Caledonia. The article traces the evolution of colonial relations noting that in both countries, the moderate political aspirations of the colonised peoples during the post-war period were jettisoned by a new generation of radical activists starting in the late 1960s. By the mid-1980s, these movements for decolonisation had gained sufficient support to be able to force concessions from the governments of New Zealand and France. It also notes that in 2023, both countries were confronted by attempts by those in power to call into question fundamental aspects of decolonisation which had been widely believed to have been settled for decades, including the issue of whether ongoing dimensions of colonisation should be addressed. The article argues that, although colonisation in New Zealand and New Caledonia took different forms, the current backlash against efforts for decolonisation is once again presenting similar challenges separately yet simultaneously in both countries.
Open Access
Evaluating the Effects of Metalinguistic and Working Memory Training on Reading Fluency in Chinese and English: A Randomized Controlled Trial
(Frontiers Media SA, online-publication-date) SIU, Tik Sze Carrey; McBride , Catherine; Tse , Chi-Shing; Tong , Xiuhong; Maurer , Urs
Open Access
Deliberating on group sizes and child-adult ratios in infant-toddler care and education: Voices of practitioners and parents from Hong Kong
(2022) SIU, Tik Sze Carrey; Caldwell , Melissa Pearl; Cheung , Sum Kwing; Cheung , Him
Open Access
A Multi-Layered Dialogue: Exploring Froebel’s Influence on Pedagogies of Care with 1-year-olds across Four Countries
(2022) Cooper , Maria; SIU, Tik Sze Carrey; McMullen , Mary Benson; Rockel, Jean; Powell , Sacha
Infant and toddler pedagogy has flourished as a specialized area of practice in early childhood care and education settings, yet it remains an under-researched area. There is also limited empirical research internationally that explores cultural meanings of meaningful provision for this young age group. This ethnographic study explored pedagogies of care with 1-year olds in four cultures—England, United States, New Zealand and Hong Kong—guided by Froebel’s education philosophy and a view of pedagogies of care as embodiments of culture. The researchers employed sociocultural and ecological theoretical perspectives (Darling, 2016) to attend to cultural meanings at the micro, macro and temporal levels in relation to people, contexts and processes. This lens enabled the researchers to resist the positivist tendency to normalize and unify all children’s experiences and maintain the integrity of diverse interpretations. Inspired by Tobin et al.’s (1989, 2009) cross-national research on preschool in three cultures, the researchers utilized a video-cued multivocal and layered interpretation approach to elicit the “voices” of 1-year-olds, their teachers/practitioners and families. This paper focuses on each researcher’s discussion of the ways Froebel’s principles of autonomy in learning and freedom with guidance were seen to unfold. The nuances of how these principles were manifested in pedagogies for infants and toddlers is explored in relation to each country’s curriculum and cultural ideals.
Open Access
Supporting teachers in inclusive practices: Collaboration between special and mainstream schools in Kuwait
(Informa UK Limited, 2013) Al-Manabri, M; Al-Sharhan, A; Elbeheri, G; Jasem, IM; Everatt, John
We discuss a project aimed at improving Kuwaiti mainstream teachers’ attitudes, knowledge and teaching practice related to learning disabilities and inclusion. The project involved special school staff providing mainstream primary school teachers with first-hand experiences of inclusive practices that could be implemented in their own schools. Despite the project’s relatively short duration, and the large number of teachers involved, there was evidence of improvements in teachers’ self-reported attitude/views towards children with LD, as well as improved practice indicators, in the majority of schools. Overall, the value of this project has been that it showed how a special school can become the focus of inclusion work within an educational context in which inclusion is a relatively new and poorly understood concept.
Open Access
What do health care professionals want to know about assisted dying? Setting the research agenda in New Zealand
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2023) Young, J; Snelling, J; Beaumont S; Diesfeld, K; White, B; Willmott, L; Robinson J; Ahuriri-Driscoll A; Cheung, G; Dehkhoda, A; Egan R; Jap, J; Karaka-Clarke, TH; Manson, L; McLaren, C; Winters, J
Background: New Zealand recently introduced law permitting terminally ill people to request and receive assisted dying (AD) in specified circumstances. Given the nature and complexity of this new health service, research is vital to determine how AD is operating in practice. Objective: To identify research priorities regarding the implementation and delivery of AD in New Zealand. Methods: Using an adapted research prioritisation methodology, the researchers identified 15 potential AD research topics. A mixed-methods survey of health professionals was undertaken where respondents were asked to rate the 15 topics according to the relative importance for research to be conducted on each issue. Respondents could also suggest additional research areas, and were invited to participate in a follow-up interview. Results: One hundred and nineteen respondents completed the survey. 31% had some experience with AD. The highest rated research topic was the ‘effectiveness of safeguards in the Act to protect people’; the lowest rated topic was research into the ‘experiences of non-provider (e.g., administrative, cleaning) staff where assisted dying is being provided’. Respondents suggested 49 other research topics. Twenty-six interviews were conducted. Thematic analysis of interview data and open-ended survey questions was undertaken. Six research themes were identified: general factors related to the wider health system; the experiences of health care providers at the bedside; medico-legal issues; the impact of AD; experiences on the day of dying; and the overall effectiveness of the AD system. Key issues for stakeholders included safety of the AD service; ensuring access to AD; achieving equity for ‘structurally disadvantaged’ groups; and ensuring the well-being of patients, families/whānau, providers and non-providers. Conclusions: Based on early experiences of the implementation of the AD service, health professionals provide important insights into what research should be prioritised post-legalisation of AD. These findings can be used to shape the research agenda so that research may inform law, policy and best practice.