This review aimed to analyze the trends and contributions of nursing doctoral theses produced in Hong Kong. A total of 56 nursing doctoral theses were included in this review. The most often studied topic was cardiova...This review aimed to analyze the trends and contributions of nursing doctoral theses produced in Hong Kong. A total of 56 nursing doctoral theses were included in this review. The most often studied topic was cardiovascular rehabilitation care (n = 9, 16%). More recently, the most often studied topics has been health technology advancements in nursing care (n = 6, 10.7%). The common trend of study methods was to be quantitative in nature. Of the total, 35 out of 56 were quantitative studies. Half were experimental/ quasi-experimental research studies (n = 28, 50%). For theoretical foundations or applications, the majority (n = 21, 36%) of doctoral theses had no specific theoretical/conceptual models as study frameworks. This trend indicates that there is space for improving the theoretical and philosophical foundation of nursing research in Hong Kong. For the contributions of doctoral thesis research, Hong Kong nursing scholars place more emphasis on direct enhancement of clinical practice or the improvement of patient outcomes. This review provides concrete evidence of the status of nursing research and knowledge development in Hong Kong nursing.展开更多
Aims: To identify the impact of social participation, socio-demographic, socio-economic and disease factors on nutritional risk among older persons in Hong Kong. Background: Few published work has investigated the rel...Aims: To identify the impact of social participation, socio-demographic, socio-economic and disease factors on nutritional risk among older persons in Hong Kong. Background: Few published work has investigated the relative risks of social participation, demographic, socioeconomic and disease factors with malnutrition in community-living older people, this study is to investigate the associations of these risk factors on the nutritional status in better nutrition support for the old age group. Design: A crosssectional study. Methods: It was a secondary analysis of a database in a mobile community centre between January 2008 and December 2009. One thousand seven hundred and thirty one participants aged between 54 and 103 were collected. With 319 full Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) completed, the participants’ demographic, socio-economic data, diseases, and nutritional status were analyzed with relative risk and 95% confidence interval level to identify the factors that make them vulnerable to nutritional risk. Results: The prevalence of malnutrition in the community-dwelling old was 3.95% and 83.7% of the sample was at risk of malnutrition. Living on allowances, young old who was socially engaged and good relationship with family members were at less risk to malnutrition. Conclusions: Special attention should be taken to these groups as they are prone to develop malnutrition.展开更多
Internal migration in China has introduced critical challenges to the education and health of migrant adolescents. The aim of this study was to explore the differences in sexual knowledge and attitudes among migrate a...Internal migration in China has introduced critical challenges to the education and health of migrant adolescents. The aim of this study was to explore the differences in sexual knowledge and attitudes among migrate and local adolescents. Survey research with a total of 616 adolescents in grades equivalent to US 10th and 11th grades including 113 migrants completed a selfadministered questionnaire. Misconceptions of adolescent physical development, sexual activity, marriage, birth control, sexually transmitted diseases and the probability of pregnancy were found in most of the migrant adolescents. Significantly lower attitudinal scores were found for the sub-scales of clarity of personal sexual values, understanding of emotional needs, social behavior, sexual responses;attitudes towards gender role, birth control, premarital intercourse, use of force in sexual activity, the importance of family and satisfaction with social relationship in migrant adolescents. Migrant adolescents have a low level of knowledge of sexual activities. The content of education programs should include engagement in sexual behavior to equip adolescents with unbiased and factual knowledge. The adolescents have a high demand for family support. School based sex education programs should involve the participation of parents to address these issues.展开更多
Background: Although the standing long jump (SLJ) is a popular physical fitness assessment, it lacks an updated criterion-reference standard. This study generated the first normative SLJ test data for Chinese aged 8 -...Background: Although the standing long jump (SLJ) is a popular physical fitness assessment, it lacks an updated criterion-reference standard. This study generated the first normative SLJ test data for Chinese aged 8 - 18. Methods: From September 2005 to December 2011, comprehensive physical fitness assessments were conducted on 12,712 school students. The SLJ performances were significantly different between boys and girls (all age groups, p < 0.01). Results: The boys performed better than the girls in each age group. The mean difference increased as the age increased, depicting a prominent variance in muscular strength between boys and girls at age 12, and the variances became larger at age 18. Girls in the 70th percenttile performed similarly to boys performing in the 10th percentile. The onset of muscle strength for boys found in this study corresponded to the onset age of testosterone maturation of Chinese boys investigated in previous studies. Linear regression found age and BMI predicting SLJ significantly for boys and girls, explaining better SLJ results in older boy and the effect of their heavy body size. Conclusions: This study indicated a muscular strength difference between genders during growth and added supporting evidence to the hormonal influence of muscle growth during puberty.展开更多
Purpose: To investigate the effect of nutrition education and the engagement of students, parents and teachers in addressing school-specific environmental influences in eating problem. Design: This study adopted the a...Purpose: To investigate the effect of nutrition education and the engagement of students, parents and teachers in addressing school-specific environmental influences in eating problem. Design: This study adopted the action research process of diagnosing, action planning, taking action, evaluating, and specifying learning. Each of obese and non-obese male and female students was randomly selected based on physical screening based on obesity criteria. Dietary intake records were taken over seven days as the pre-intervention period. These four students, one of each of their parents and the teacher from the primary school, were given 3 sessions of nutrition education. After the nutrition education, dietary intake records were taken over the subsequent 7 days as the post-intervention period. Lunch observation and lunch menu review were included to identify eating problem of primary school children in school level. Findings: Students were found to consume less whole grains and more food items belonged to the “limited” and “strongly discouraged” as set in government lunch guidelines. Students’ dietary intakes before and after the nutrition education were found improved in their energy intake (p = 0.012), total fat, saturated fat, calcium, sodium, and cholesterol. Conclusion: A participatory model in elementary nutrition education could be effective.展开更多
Teachers play an important role in delivering health education to empower students with skills for healthy living to prevent non-communicable diseases. One of the common non-communicable diseases is hypertension that ...Teachers play an important role in delivering health education to empower students with skills for healthy living to prevent non-communicable diseases. One of the common non-communicable diseases is hypertension that its development is highly associated with unhealthy lifestyle. A survey was administered to assess 130 pre-service teachers and 54 in-service teachers who were taking the health education course to prepare them for teaching the content of healthy living in Hong Kong. The assessment included their knowledge level of hypertension, attitudes towards lifestyle modification education to students, perception of knowledgeable to give health education. It was found that the knowledge level related to hypertension was generally below average among the teachers. Although they considered that lifestyle modification was an effective way to enhance students’ well-being, both pre-service and in-service teachers were reluctant to take responsibility for lifestyle modification education to their students. Lack of skill training was perceived as a problem. Teachers’ perception on health education should not be limited to the provision of simple information and advice. There is a need to improve teachers’ health literacy on some common non-communicable diseases.展开更多
Community of Practice (CoP) has been proved as an effective means for co-creation of knowledge. It is not yet widely used in health promotion, not to mention to utilize technological environment such as Web 2.0 to add...Community of Practice (CoP) has been proved as an effective means for co-creation of knowledge. It is not yet widely used in health promotion, not to mention to utilize technological environment such as Web 2.0 to add value to the CoP. Under this study, an eHealth promotion @HKIEd, a CoP platform to promote healthy lifestyles was designed and constructed. It helped facilitate the CoP to share useful health information, locate expertise, promote health related events, communicate health updates effectively, co-construct shared repertoire of knowledge and build shared best practice on effective health promotion which was not limited to time, space and distance. Usability test was conducted to evaluate user acceptance of the eHealth promotion CoP platform using the Computer System Usability Questionnaire. A random sample of eighty-three active participants was recruited. Fifty females and thirty-three males with mean (S.D.) aged 21.1 were asked to evaluate the e-platform. The average scores of each domain were calculated with the corresponding means of the average scores of System Use, Information Quality and Interface Quality being 2.69, 2.83 and 2.74 respectively. The overall usability was 2.48 and the eHealth promotion @HKIEd demonstrated a high usability. It will provide a promising way to disseminate information for the public in health awareness promotion.展开更多
The purpose of this study was to detect social desirable response bias on Chinese nurses’ attitudes and beliefs toward sexuality care of cancer patients. A cross-sectional self-reported questionnaire based survey was...The purpose of this study was to detect social desirable response bias on Chinese nurses’ attitudes and beliefs toward sexuality care of cancer patients. A cross-sectional self-reported questionnaire based survey was used. Measures included a 12-item Inventory of Sexuality Attitude and Belief Survey (SABS) and a 10-item Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Total social desirability scores were significantly correlated with four individual items of the SABS, and significantly predicted the total SABS scores (β=﹣0.155, p= 0.028). Before controlling social desirability variable, nurses’ age, marital status, years of working experience, and working units were significantly correlated with total SABS scores. After controlling social desirability variable, only nurses’ age and working units were statistically significant predictors of SABS. Social desirable response bias had impacts on Chinese nurses’ attitudes and beliefs toward sexuality care of cancer patients. Study findings demonstrated that social desirable response bias would potentially jeopardize human sexuality assessment and counseling in nursing practice. Controlling social desirable response should consider using a social desirability scale to detect and control potential social desirability bias during data analysis.展开更多
The global flow of citizenship education in China has spurred much discussion in Chinese academic circles.This study explores the interaction between citizenship education and China’s the existing political-ideologic...The global flow of citizenship education in China has spurred much discussion in Chinese academic circles.This study explores the interaction between citizenship education and China’s the existing political-ideological education and moral education as a space is negotiated a space in the current“ideoscape.”A qualitative approach is adopted to synthesize the literature coming from China on citizenship education from an interpretive and critical perspective.The research findings suggest:(a)The territory of orthodox political-ideological education is being narrowed down as its relationship with citizenship education is configured;(b)citizenship education and moral education are represented using different images to delineate their distinctions;and(c)the introduction of“global citizenship education”includes many new topics and competencies that expands the current ideoscape.This study argues that the ongoing debates on citizenship education are deeply rooted in China’s structural transformation,in which society tends to be separated from state.In negotiating its own territory,citizenship education reshapes China’s ideoscape in the education field.The paper concludes by suggesting that citizenship education should make a unique contribution to facilitating young citizens in a reexamination of the values imbedded in political-ideological education and moral education with a new social consensus being reached through the communication of ideas.展开更多
This article explores the dynamics of power-sharing between teacher and students in learning and teaching situations,and describes the theoretical bases,implementation,and results of an empirical study in three elemen...This article explores the dynamics of power-sharing between teacher and students in learning and teaching situations,and describes the theoretical bases,implementation,and results of an empirical study in three elementary schools in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.Findings from 58 class observations and interviews with 50 students,25 teachers,and three school principals suggest that teachers can empower students by acknowledging their right to and responsibility for learning and by sharing power with students.Power-sharing classroom practice requires the dual efforts of teachers and students,and can be facilitated by the teachers’interactive teaching mode,students’cooperation and willingness to engage in learning,and school policy and culture,etc.In the power-sharing classrooms,teachers played the role of facilitators and students played as collaborators.In this article,theoretical implications for understanding power-sharing and critical pedagogy are discussed.The empirical evidence from this Hong Kong study contributes to an understanding of teacher-initiated power-sharing in the Chinese context,and the practice of critical pedagogy in classrooms.展开更多
A thiourea precursor was employed to synthesize mesoporous carbon nitride(C3 N4) by a thermal polycondensation process with high surface area SiO2 and nanosphere SiO2 as two types of hard templates. The resultant meso...A thiourea precursor was employed to synthesize mesoporous carbon nitride(C3 N4) by a thermal polycondensation process with high surface area SiO2 and nanosphere SiO2 as two types of hard templates. The resultant mesoporous C3 N4 samples have high surface areas(105–112 m2/g) and mesopores with narrow sizes distribution(9.3 nm). Photocatalytic performance was evaluated by removal of NO in air under visible light irradiation. The results showed that mesoporous C3 N4 samples exhibited significantly improved photocatalytic activity in comparison with bulk C3 N4, which also exceeded that of N-doped TiO2 and C-doped TiO2. The activity enhancement can be ascribed to the synergistic effects of large surface area and pore volume, enhanced light-harvesting ability, increased redox potential, and reduced recombination of charge carriers. In addition to the high activity, the mesoporous C3 N4 samples also showed high photochemical stability. The mesoporous C3 N4 photocatalysts with enhanced and durable activity could provide a new efficient material for environmental pollution control.展开更多
Among discussions on international academic mobility,a persistent challenge is to understand whether education abroad can become a source of brain gain,and whether globalization can offer source countries the hope tha...Among discussions on international academic mobility,a persistent challenge is to understand whether education abroad can become a source of brain gain,and whether globalization can offer source countries the hope that they might enjoy the benefits of freer cross-border flows in information and personnel.With reference to China,this article provides an understanding of these two issues.It reveals practical factors affecting returnees’decision to return,their contribution to specific areas,and obstacles that limit their contribution and career opportunities.In addition,it sheds light on an emerging brain circulation between China and foreign countries,along with the increased cross-border flow of academic talent from and into China.展开更多
The establishment of normal colleges and universities is an important component of building a modern country,which possesses different value ethos with the universities.The emergence of theÉcole Normale Supé...The establishment of normal colleges and universities is an important component of building a modern country,which possesses different value ethos with the universities.The emergence of theÉcole Normale Supérieure in Paris and the local normal schools has set a new model for teacher education around the world and promoted values and knowledge patterns promoted by them quite distinctive from those of the traditional European university.In order to improve the quality of teacher education,the models of teacher education in the U.S.,Japan,U.K.,etc.,are being continually innovated.China has created the teacher education model different with the U.S.,Japan,U.K.and France,which is a contribution to the development of international teacher education.展开更多
In this paper, the Clarkson-Kruskal direct approach is employed to investigate the exact solutions of the 2-dimensionai rotationai Euler equations for the incompressible fluid. The application of the method leads to a...In this paper, the Clarkson-Kruskal direct approach is employed to investigate the exact solutions of the 2-dimensionai rotationai Euler equations for the incompressible fluid. The application of the method leads to a system of completely solvable ordinary differential equations. Several special cases are discussed and novel nonlinear exact solutions with respect to variables x and y are obtained. It is＇of interest to notice that the pressure p is obtained by the second kind of curvilinear integral and the coefficients of the nonlinear solutions are solitary wave type functions like tanh（ kt /2 ） and sech （kt/2） due to the rotational parameter k ≠ O. Such phenomenon never appear in the classical Euler equations wherein the Coriolis force arising from the gravity and Earth＇s rotation is ignored. Finally, illustrative numerical figures are attached to show the behaviors that the exact solutions may exhibit.展开更多
Background: Cardiorespiratory fitness involves both cardiovascular and respiratory capacities. However, existing methods have been criticised for reflecting cardiovascular fitness, but not pulmonary fitness. The objec...Background: Cardiorespiratory fitness involves both cardiovascular and respiratory capacities. However, existing methods have been criticised for reflecting cardiovascular fitness, but not pulmonary fitness. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between these two testing parameters. Methods: A cross-sectional population-based physical fitness assessment was conducted in 23 schools. The body height and weight, lung capacity, and step test results of students aged 10-18 were recorded. Criterion-referenced standards from the China Sports Bureau were adopted, as they include separate measurements for cardiovascular and pulmonary fitness. Results: The Pearson coefficients of lung capacity and the step test index from 13,028 schoolchildren ranged from 0.007 to 0.086 and from 0.026 to 0.105 for boys and girls, respectively, showing that poor correlations exist between the two parameters. Cluster analysis resulted in three clusters of children with similar characteristics. A good degree of similarity was found between the two parameters in children obtaining an “excellent” grade, but only a moderate degree of similarity between the two parameters in those obtaining a “good”, “pass” or “fail” grade. Conclusion: When cardiovascular fitness and pulmonary fitness are considered separately, there is a poor correlation between them, thus indicating further studies of cardiopulmonary fitness measurements is necessary.展开更多
This article examines the issue of the quality of teacher-produced tests,limiting itself in the current context to objective,multiple-choice tests.The article investigates a short,two-part 20-item English language tes...This article examines the issue of the quality of teacher-produced tests,limiting itself in the current context to objective,multiple-choice tests.The article investigates a short,two-part 20-item English language test.After a brief overview of the key test qualities of reliability and validity,the article examines the two subtests in terms of test and item quality,using standard classical test statistics.Unsurprisingly,the pretested items outperform the teacher-produced test.The differences between the two subtests underscore issues about the quality(or lack thereof)of teacher-produced tests.The article ends with suggestions of how teacher-produced tests might be improved.展开更多
Increasing numbers of overweight and obese children resulting from sedentary and abundant lifestyles are a health concern in Hong Kong and other affluent communities around the globe. The importance of physical activi...Increasing numbers of overweight and obese children resulting from sedentary and abundant lifestyles are a health concern in Hong Kong and other affluent communities around the globe. The importance of physical activity is well documented for health and wellbeing, with sedentary behavior emerging as an independent risk factor for chronic diseases and mortality. In this study, Pender’s Health-Promotion Model informed the development of an intervention program aimed to engage junior high school students in increased physical activity, specifically brisk-walking. The model set out to motivate participants to engage in behaviors to enhance their health across the life span, including developing self-efficacy with regard to brisk walking. The intervention featured four stages. First, participants were provided with information about the benefits and in stage two were trained in the technique of brisk walking. Next they engaged in the brisk walking program and in stage four were encouraged to serve as health ambassadors by introducing brisk walking and its associated benefits to others, thereby exercising peer influence to diffuse the practice of brisk walking more widely among members of the community. Motivational strategies were used as incentives in the program, including the involvement of a popular singing band to award certificates at the completion of the program. This 7-week intervention program including a 4-week brisk walking component was conducted in a high school context with 71 participants. Data were collected to enable paired-sample t-tests to be conducted to statistically analyze the data at pre- and post-intervention. Findings indicate significant differences among the mean Body Mass Index (BMI), Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR), knowledge and attitudes of the participants at pre- and post-intervention. These findings suggest that the intervention was effective as a strategy to reduce sedentary behavior with the concomitant effect of positive shifts in measurable indicators and attitudes.展开更多
Taekwondo (TKD) is a popular sport among adolescents, but the potential benefits of TKD training to young individuals are not well understood. The objectives of this cross-sectional exploratory study were to compare f...Taekwondo (TKD) is a popular sport among adolescents, but the potential benefits of TKD training to young individuals are not well understood. The objectives of this cross-sectional exploratory study were to compare flexibility, muscular endurance, body composition, and simple reaction time between TKD-trained adolescents and controls. Twenty TKD-trained adolescents aged between 10 and 14 and 20 age-matched healthy controls were asked to perform five physical fitness tests: a sit-and-reach test, leg split test, skinfold measurement, one-minute curl-up test, and ruler-drop reaction time test. The results revealed no significance differences between the two groups in sit-and-reach distance (p = 0.690), leg split angle (p = 0.789), percentage of body fat (p = 0.342), or number of repetitions in the one-minute curl-up test (p = 0.250). However, the TKD group had significantly faster reaction times in the rulerdrop test than the control group (p = 0.005). The results thus suggest that although TKD training may improve reaction times in adolescents, it may have little effect on flexibility, muscular endurance, and body composition (percentage of fat). TKD may be a suitable exercise for improving simple reaction time, but it may not be suitable for improving general physical fitness in adolescents.展开更多
文摘This review aimed to analyze the trends and contributions of nursing doctoral theses produced in Hong Kong. A total of 56 nursing doctoral theses were included in this review. The most often studied topic was cardiovascular rehabilitation care (n = 9, 16%). More recently, the most often studied topics has been health technology advancements in nursing care (n = 6, 10.7%). The common trend of study methods was to be quantitative in nature. Of the total, 35 out of 56 were quantitative studies. Half were experimental/ quasi-experimental research studies (n = 28, 50%). For theoretical foundations or applications, the majority (n = 21, 36%) of doctoral theses had no specific theoretical/conceptual models as study frameworks. This trend indicates that there is space for improving the theoretical and philosophical foundation of nursing research in Hong Kong. For the contributions of doctoral thesis research, Hong Kong nursing scholars place more emphasis on direct enhancement of clinical practice or the improvement of patient outcomes. This review provides concrete evidence of the status of nursing research and knowledge development in Hong Kong nursing.
文摘Aims: To identify the impact of social participation, socio-demographic, socio-economic and disease factors on nutritional risk among older persons in Hong Kong. Background: Few published work has investigated the relative risks of social participation, demographic, socioeconomic and disease factors with malnutrition in community-living older people, this study is to investigate the associations of these risk factors on the nutritional status in better nutrition support for the old age group. Design: A crosssectional study. Methods: It was a secondary analysis of a database in a mobile community centre between January 2008 and December 2009. One thousand seven hundred and thirty one participants aged between 54 and 103 were collected. With 319 full Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) completed, the participants’ demographic, socio-economic data, diseases, and nutritional status were analyzed with relative risk and 95% confidence interval level to identify the factors that make them vulnerable to nutritional risk. Results: The prevalence of malnutrition in the community-dwelling old was 3.95% and 83.7% of the sample was at risk of malnutrition. Living on allowances, young old who was socially engaged and good relationship with family members were at less risk to malnutrition. Conclusions: Special attention should be taken to these groups as they are prone to develop malnutrition.
文摘Internal migration in China has introduced critical challenges to the education and health of migrant adolescents. The aim of this study was to explore the differences in sexual knowledge and attitudes among migrate and local adolescents. Survey research with a total of 616 adolescents in grades equivalent to US 10th and 11th grades including 113 migrants completed a selfadministered questionnaire. Misconceptions of adolescent physical development, sexual activity, marriage, birth control, sexually transmitted diseases and the probability of pregnancy were found in most of the migrant adolescents. Significantly lower attitudinal scores were found for the sub-scales of clarity of personal sexual values, understanding of emotional needs, social behavior, sexual responses;attitudes towards gender role, birth control, premarital intercourse, use of force in sexual activity, the importance of family and satisfaction with social relationship in migrant adolescents. Migrant adolescents have a low level of knowledge of sexual activities. The content of education programs should include engagement in sexual behavior to equip adolescents with unbiased and factual knowledge. The adolescents have a high demand for family support. School based sex education programs should involve the participation of parents to address these issues.
文摘Background: Although the standing long jump (SLJ) is a popular physical fitness assessment, it lacks an updated criterion-reference standard. This study generated the first normative SLJ test data for Chinese aged 8 - 18. Methods: From September 2005 to December 2011, comprehensive physical fitness assessments were conducted on 12,712 school students. The SLJ performances were significantly different between boys and girls (all age groups, p < 0.01). Results: The boys performed better than the girls in each age group. The mean difference increased as the age increased, depicting a prominent variance in muscular strength between boys and girls at age 12, and the variances became larger at age 18. Girls in the 70th percenttile performed similarly to boys performing in the 10th percentile. The onset of muscle strength for boys found in this study corresponded to the onset age of testosterone maturation of Chinese boys investigated in previous studies. Linear regression found age and BMI predicting SLJ significantly for boys and girls, explaining better SLJ results in older boy and the effect of their heavy body size. Conclusions: This study indicated a muscular strength difference between genders during growth and added supporting evidence to the hormonal influence of muscle growth during puberty.
文摘Purpose: To investigate the effect of nutrition education and the engagement of students, parents and teachers in addressing school-specific environmental influences in eating problem. Design: This study adopted the action research process of diagnosing, action planning, taking action, evaluating, and specifying learning. Each of obese and non-obese male and female students was randomly selected based on physical screening based on obesity criteria. Dietary intake records were taken over seven days as the pre-intervention period. These four students, one of each of their parents and the teacher from the primary school, were given 3 sessions of nutrition education. After the nutrition education, dietary intake records were taken over the subsequent 7 days as the post-intervention period. Lunch observation and lunch menu review were included to identify eating problem of primary school children in school level. Findings: Students were found to consume less whole grains and more food items belonged to the “limited” and “strongly discouraged” as set in government lunch guidelines. Students’ dietary intakes before and after the nutrition education were found improved in their energy intake (p = 0.012), total fat, saturated fat, calcium, sodium, and cholesterol. Conclusion: A participatory model in elementary nutrition education could be effective.
文摘Teachers play an important role in delivering health education to empower students with skills for healthy living to prevent non-communicable diseases. One of the common non-communicable diseases is hypertension that its development is highly associated with unhealthy lifestyle. A survey was administered to assess 130 pre-service teachers and 54 in-service teachers who were taking the health education course to prepare them for teaching the content of healthy living in Hong Kong. The assessment included their knowledge level of hypertension, attitudes towards lifestyle modification education to students, perception of knowledgeable to give health education. It was found that the knowledge level related to hypertension was generally below average among the teachers. Although they considered that lifestyle modification was an effective way to enhance students’ well-being, both pre-service and in-service teachers were reluctant to take responsibility for lifestyle modification education to their students. Lack of skill training was perceived as a problem. Teachers’ perception on health education should not be limited to the provision of simple information and advice. There is a need to improve teachers’ health literacy on some common non-communicable diseases.
文摘Community of Practice (CoP) has been proved as an effective means for co-creation of knowledge. It is not yet widely used in health promotion, not to mention to utilize technological environment such as Web 2.0 to add value to the CoP. Under this study, an eHealth promotion @HKIEd, a CoP platform to promote healthy lifestyles was designed and constructed. It helped facilitate the CoP to share useful health information, locate expertise, promote health related events, communicate health updates effectively, co-construct shared repertoire of knowledge and build shared best practice on effective health promotion which was not limited to time, space and distance. Usability test was conducted to evaluate user acceptance of the eHealth promotion CoP platform using the Computer System Usability Questionnaire. A random sample of eighty-three active participants was recruited. Fifty females and thirty-three males with mean (S.D.) aged 21.1 were asked to evaluate the e-platform. The average scores of each domain were calculated with the corresponding means of the average scores of System Use, Information Quality and Interface Quality being 2.69, 2.83 and 2.74 respectively. The overall usability was 2.48 and the eHealth promotion @HKIEd demonstrated a high usability. It will provide a promising way to disseminate information for the public in health awareness promotion.
文摘The purpose of this study was to detect social desirable response bias on Chinese nurses’ attitudes and beliefs toward sexuality care of cancer patients. A cross-sectional self-reported questionnaire based survey was used. Measures included a 12-item Inventory of Sexuality Attitude and Belief Survey (SABS) and a 10-item Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Total social desirability scores were significantly correlated with four individual items of the SABS, and significantly predicted the total SABS scores (β=﹣0.155, p= 0.028). Before controlling social desirability variable, nurses’ age, marital status, years of working experience, and working units were significantly correlated with total SABS scores. After controlling social desirability variable, only nurses’ age and working units were statistically significant predictors of SABS. Social desirable response bias had impacts on Chinese nurses’ attitudes and beliefs toward sexuality care of cancer patients. Study findings demonstrated that social desirable response bias would potentially jeopardize human sexuality assessment and counseling in nursing practice. Controlling social desirable response should consider using a social desirability scale to detect and control potential social desirability bias during data analysis.
基金The research was funded by an Hong Kong Institute of Education Internal Research Grant(RG72/2011-2012).
文摘The global flow of citizenship education in China has spurred much discussion in Chinese academic circles.This study explores the interaction between citizenship education and China’s the existing political-ideological education and moral education as a space is negotiated a space in the current“ideoscape.”A qualitative approach is adopted to synthesize the literature coming from China on citizenship education from an interpretive and critical perspective.The research findings suggest:(a)The territory of orthodox political-ideological education is being narrowed down as its relationship with citizenship education is configured;(b)citizenship education and moral education are represented using different images to delineate their distinctions;and(c)the introduction of“global citizenship education”includes many new topics and competencies that expands the current ideoscape.This study argues that the ongoing debates on citizenship education are deeply rooted in China’s structural transformation,in which society tends to be separated from state.In negotiating its own territory,citizenship education reshapes China’s ideoscape in the education field.The paper concludes by suggesting that citizenship education should make a unique contribution to facilitating young citizens in a reexamination of the values imbedded in political-ideological education and moral education with a new social consensus being reached through the communication of ideas.
文摘This article explores the dynamics of power-sharing between teacher and students in learning and teaching situations,and describes the theoretical bases,implementation,and results of an empirical study in three elementary schools in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.Findings from 58 class observations and interviews with 50 students,25 teachers,and three school principals suggest that teachers can empower students by acknowledging their right to and responsibility for learning and by sharing power with students.Power-sharing classroom practice requires the dual efforts of teachers and students,and can be facilitated by the teachers’interactive teaching mode,students’cooperation and willingness to engage in learning,and school policy and culture,etc.In the power-sharing classrooms,teachers played the role of facilitators and students played as collaborators.In this article,theoretical implications for understanding power-sharing and critical pedagogy are discussed.The empirical evidence from this Hong Kong study contributes to an understanding of teacher-initiated power-sharing in the Chinese context,and the practice of critical pedagogy in classrooms.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(51108487)the Natural Science Foundation Project of CQ CSTC(cstc2013jcyjA20018)+2 种基金the Science and Technology Project from Chongqing Education Commission(KJ130725)the Innovative Research Team Development Program in University of Chongqing(KJTD201314)the Opening Project of Key Laboratory of Green Catalysis of Sichuan Institutes of Higher Education(LZJ1204)
文摘A thiourea precursor was employed to synthesize mesoporous carbon nitride(C3 N4) by a thermal polycondensation process with high surface area SiO2 and nanosphere SiO2 as two types of hard templates. The resultant mesoporous C3 N4 samples have high surface areas(105–112 m2/g) and mesopores with narrow sizes distribution(9.3 nm). Photocatalytic performance was evaluated by removal of NO in air under visible light irradiation. The results showed that mesoporous C3 N4 samples exhibited significantly improved photocatalytic activity in comparison with bulk C3 N4, which also exceeded that of N-doped TiO2 and C-doped TiO2. The activity enhancement can be ascribed to the synergistic effects of large surface area and pore volume, enhanced light-harvesting ability, increased redox potential, and reduced recombination of charge carriers. In addition to the high activity, the mesoporous C3 N4 samples also showed high photochemical stability. The mesoporous C3 N4 photocatalysts with enhanced and durable activity could provide a new efficient material for environmental pollution control.
文摘Among discussions on international academic mobility,a persistent challenge is to understand whether education abroad can become a source of brain gain,and whether globalization can offer source countries the hope that they might enjoy the benefits of freer cross-border flows in information and personnel.With reference to China,this article provides an understanding of these two issues.It reveals practical factors affecting returnees’decision to return,their contribution to specific areas,and obstacles that limit their contribution and career opportunities.In addition,it sheds light on an emerging brain circulation between China and foreign countries,along with the increased cross-border flow of academic talent from and into China.
文摘The establishment of normal colleges and universities is an important component of building a modern country,which possesses different value ethos with the universities.The emergence of theÉcole Normale Supérieure in Paris and the local normal schools has set a new model for teacher education around the world and promoted values and knowledge patterns promoted by them quite distinctive from those of the traditional European university.In order to improve the quality of teacher education,the models of teacher education in the U.S.,Japan,U.K.,etc.,are being continually innovated.China has created the teacher education model different with the U.S.,Japan,U.K.and France,which is a contribution to the development of international teacher education.
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No.11301269Jiangsu Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No.BK20130665+2 种基金the Fundamental Research Funds KJ2013036 for the Central UniversitiesStudent Research Training under Grant No.1423A02 of Nanjing Agricultural Universitythe Research Grant RG21/2013-2014R from the Hong Kong Institute of Education
文摘In this paper, the Clarkson-Kruskal direct approach is employed to investigate the exact solutions of the 2-dimensionai rotationai Euler equations for the incompressible fluid. The application of the method leads to a system of completely solvable ordinary differential equations. Several special cases are discussed and novel nonlinear exact solutions with respect to variables x and y are obtained. It is＇of interest to notice that the pressure p is obtained by the second kind of curvilinear integral and the coefficients of the nonlinear solutions are solitary wave type functions like tanh（ kt /2 ） and sech （kt/2） due to the rotational parameter k ≠ O. Such phenomenon never appear in the classical Euler equations wherein the Coriolis force arising from the gravity and Earth＇s rotation is ignored. Finally, illustrative numerical figures are attached to show the behaviors that the exact solutions may exhibit.
文摘Background: Cardiorespiratory fitness involves both cardiovascular and respiratory capacities. However, existing methods have been criticised for reflecting cardiovascular fitness, but not pulmonary fitness. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between these two testing parameters. Methods: A cross-sectional population-based physical fitness assessment was conducted in 23 schools. The body height and weight, lung capacity, and step test results of students aged 10-18 were recorded. Criterion-referenced standards from the China Sports Bureau were adopted, as they include separate measurements for cardiovascular and pulmonary fitness. Results: The Pearson coefficients of lung capacity and the step test index from 13,028 schoolchildren ranged from 0.007 to 0.086 and from 0.026 to 0.105 for boys and girls, respectively, showing that poor correlations exist between the two parameters. Cluster analysis resulted in three clusters of children with similar characteristics. A good degree of similarity was found between the two parameters in children obtaining an “excellent” grade, but only a moderate degree of similarity between the two parameters in those obtaining a “good”, “pass” or “fail” grade. Conclusion: When cardiovascular fitness and pulmonary fitness are considered separately, there is a poor correlation between them, thus indicating further studies of cardiopulmonary fitness measurements is necessary.
文摘This article examines the issue of the quality of teacher-produced tests,limiting itself in the current context to objective,multiple-choice tests.The article investigates a short,two-part 20-item English language test.After a brief overview of the key test qualities of reliability and validity,the article examines the two subtests in terms of test and item quality,using standard classical test statistics.Unsurprisingly,the pretested items outperform the teacher-produced test.The differences between the two subtests underscore issues about the quality(or lack thereof)of teacher-produced tests.The article ends with suggestions of how teacher-produced tests might be improved.
文摘Increasing numbers of overweight and obese children resulting from sedentary and abundant lifestyles are a health concern in Hong Kong and other affluent communities around the globe. The importance of physical activity is well documented for health and wellbeing, with sedentary behavior emerging as an independent risk factor for chronic diseases and mortality. In this study, Pender’s Health-Promotion Model informed the development of an intervention program aimed to engage junior high school students in increased physical activity, specifically brisk-walking. The model set out to motivate participants to engage in behaviors to enhance their health across the life span, including developing self-efficacy with regard to brisk walking. The intervention featured four stages. First, participants were provided with information about the benefits and in stage two were trained in the technique of brisk walking. Next they engaged in the brisk walking program and in stage four were encouraged to serve as health ambassadors by introducing brisk walking and its associated benefits to others, thereby exercising peer influence to diffuse the practice of brisk walking more widely among members of the community. Motivational strategies were used as incentives in the program, including the involvement of a popular singing band to award certificates at the completion of the program. This 7-week intervention program including a 4-week brisk walking component was conducted in a high school context with 71 participants. Data were collected to enable paired-sample t-tests to be conducted to statistically analyze the data at pre- and post-intervention. Findings indicate significant differences among the mean Body Mass Index (BMI), Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR), knowledge and attitudes of the participants at pre- and post-intervention. These findings suggest that the intervention was effective as a strategy to reduce sedentary behavior with the concomitant effect of positive shifts in measurable indicators and attitudes.
文摘Taekwondo (TKD) is a popular sport among adolescents, but the potential benefits of TKD training to young individuals are not well understood. The objectives of this cross-sectional exploratory study were to compare flexibility, muscular endurance, body composition, and simple reaction time between TKD-trained adolescents and controls. Twenty TKD-trained adolescents aged between 10 and 14 and 20 age-matched healthy controls were asked to perform five physical fitness tests: a sit-and-reach test, leg split test, skinfold measurement, one-minute curl-up test, and ruler-drop reaction time test. The results revealed no significance differences between the two groups in sit-and-reach distance (p = 0.690), leg split angle (p = 0.789), percentage of body fat (p = 0.342), or number of repetitions in the one-minute curl-up test (p = 0.250). However, the TKD group had significantly faster reaction times in the rulerdrop test than the control group (p = 0.005). The results thus suggest that although TKD training may improve reaction times in adolescents, it may have little effect on flexibility, muscular endurance, and body composition (percentage of fat). TKD may be a suitable exercise for improving simple reaction time, but it may not be suitable for improving general physical fitness in adolescents.
