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The Hong Kong Society of Rheumatology (HKSR) has developed evidence-based position statements on the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA). A special interest group (SIG) developed the statements based on the literature review of the following research questions: 1) In whom should SI joint MRI be done to diagnose axSpA? 2) Should spine MRI be performed for diagnosis of axSpA? 3) Should spine and SI joint MRI be used in the assessment and monitoring of disease activity? 4) Which MRI sequence(s) should be used in axSpA? These statements have at least 75% agreement from voting rheumatology fellows of HKSR, and are developed to serve as local practice guidelines for rheumatologists and musculoskeletal radiologists in the management of axSpA.

Background: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is important in the management of axial spondyloarthritis (SpA). However, many MRI lesions are not exclusive to axial SpA. Further characterization of these lesions may lead to better clinical decisions. Objective: The objective of this study was to compare the frequency of individual spinal MRI lesions between axial SpA and noninflammatory back pain. The factors associated with individual lesions in participants with axial SpA were also determined. Design: This was a cross-sectional observational study. Methods: MRI lesions in 447 participants with axial SpA and 122 participants with noninflammatory back pain were compared using the propensity score adjustment method. Individual lesions included discovertebral lesions (DVL), Modic type 1 lesions, DVL without Modic type 1 lesions, facet joint lesions, costovertebral joint lesions, corner inflammatory lesions (CIL), and fatty corner lesions (FCL). The factors associated with the lesions were determined using regression analyses. Results: Among participants with axial SpA, 81.9% were HLA-B27-positive, 55.0% had radiographic axial SpA, and 60.5% had radiographic features of spinal damage (mSASSS >2). Almost half (48.6% in axial SpA versus 31.1% in noninflammatory back pain) had inflammatory lesions on spinal MRI. In propensity score matching with noninflammatory back pain, axial SpA had an increased occurrence of DVL without Modic type 1 lesion (OR = 3.43, p = 0.01), costovertebral lesion (OR = 11.89, p = 0.02), number of CIL ( B = 1.19, p

Concept mapping is widely used as a tool for assessing students' understanding of science. To fully realize the diagnostic potential of concept mapping, a scoring method that not only provides an objective and accurate assessment of students' drawn concept maps but also provides a detailed understanding of students' proficiency and deficiencies in knowledge is necessary. However, few of the existing scoring methods focus on the latent constructs (e.g., knowledge, skills, and cognitive processes) that guide the creation of concept maps. Instead, they focus on the completeness of the concept map by assigning a composite score, which makes it difficult to generate targeted diagnostic feedback information for advancing students' learning. To apply the diagnostic classification model to the quantitative analysis of concept maps, this study introduced the novel application of the item expansion-based diagnostic classification analysis (IE-DCA) for this purpose. The IE-DCA can not only assess students' concept mapping abilities along a continuum but also classify students according to their concept mapping attributes when constructing the concept maps. The application and benefits of this approach were illustrated using a physics concept-mapping item related to particle and rigid body. Results showed that the estimated attribute profiles via the IE-DCA provided more detailed information about students' latent constructs than the composite score. Overall, this study illustrates the feasibility and potential of applying IE-DCA to analyze concept maps. Future applications of IE-DCS in other assessments in science education are discussed.

As more and more science teacher educators are subscribing to a practice-based teacher education curriculum, it is becoming increasingly necessary to identify and articulate smaller grain-sized teaching practices nested within a core practice in important instructional contexts in order to facilitate preservice science teachers' (PSTs') learning of core practices. This paper illustrates how to achieve this goal using data from a qualitative study that aimed to characterize how PSTs enact the core practice of eliciting and working with student thinking in the three key stages of collaborative group work in rehearsals: whole-class warm-up, small group work, and whole-class share-out. Based on existing teaching practices synthesized from prior studies, as well as empirical data from the study, we identify the intermediate-level practices (teaching moves) and technique-level practices (talk moves) enacted by PSTs when orchestrating group work as well as the PSTs' strengths and missed opportunities in enacting these different grain-sized practices. Findings reveal that, although the PSTs were able to enact a variety of talk moves when orchestrating group work, they missed opportunities to engage in intermediate-level practices. For example, there were only a few instances in which the PSTs could explicitly work with the student thinking they noticed while circulating among the groups during whole-class share-out. We also identify three ways in which the PSTs used this intermediate-level practice, reflective of their differing orientations toward using student thinking. We propose an integrative framework that decomposes the focal core practice into a nested set of practices of varying grain sizes, including medium grain-sized teaching moves and small grain-sized talk moves, during and across the key stages of group work. We discuss the implications of our findings for science teacher preparation and methodological approaches for capturing PSTs' enactment of the focal core practice, as well as the possible contributions of the framework.

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is an important target of science teacher knowledge assessment. Most studies that have assessed the PCK across a large sample of science teachers used a text-based approach to elicit and assess the more declarative and static form of teachers' PCK. Recently, small-scale qualitative studies have adopted a novel video-based approach to characterize the more situated and dynamic form of PCK underpinning a teacher's in-the-moment pedagogical reasoning. In this relatively large-scale mixed-methods study, these two approaches to assessing PCK were compared. Specifically, a counterbalanced design was adopted to compare the test scores of 147 Grade 7 biology teachers in a video-based PCK test with those of the same teachers in a text-based PCK test with the same content. A subgroup of teachers (N = 30) with different levels of PCK was interviewed to further understand their reactions to the test and how these might have affected their test performance. The results of paired-samples t tests showed that the teachers' PCK scores in the two types of test were significantly correlated, but their scores were significantly lower in the video-based test. In terms of teacher reactions, although the teachers considered both types of test to be fair, they regarded the video-based test as more authentic and more closely related to their job demands. The teachers reported putting more effort into the video-based test and feeling more immersed and engaged, but also experiencing greater cognitive demand and a higher level of anxiety. A multiple regression analysis revealed that the cognitive demand perceived by the teachers significantly predicted their PCK scores in the video-based test. The findings have implications for the valid design of video-based PCK tests.

Background: Effective science teaching requires a specialised body of knowledge. Researchers have recognised the importance of understanding the incoming knowledge that pre-service science teachers (PSTs) bring to their initial teacher education. However, although many studies have focused on PSTs' declarative knowledge or the knowledge that informs their lesson planning decisions, few have considered the knowledge that PSTs activate and use in contexts similar to authentic classroom situations. Purpose: This study investigated the nature of PSTs' incoming "usable knowledge" for teaching science. Specifically, it utilised two video-based tasks, a video annotation task and an interactive video analysis task, to explore and characterise the nature of two forms of usable knowledge: knowledge that informs PSTs' analysis of classroom situations and knowledge that informs their in-the-moment instructional decision-making. usable knowledge Methods: Fourteen PSTs attempted two video-based tasks at the beginning of a science major methods course. Their responses in the two tasks were analysed qualitatively to shed light on the two abovementioned forms of usable knowledge. Findings: The PSTs readily identified the general pedagogical knowledge (PK) and topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), but not the discipline-specific PCK displayed by the teacher shown in the videos. Second, the PSTs readily identified examples of students' non-cognitive engagement or content-generic thinking in the videos. The PSTs tended to describe rather than activate their knowledge of student understanding to interpret the examples of students' cognitive thinking identified in the videos. Third, the PSTs relied primarily on PK, not PCK, to suggest alternative instructional strategies/representations. Finally, the PSTs' responses were seldom connected with emergent student thinking; instead, PSTs relied on PK rather than PCK in their on-the-fly teaching decisions. Conclusion: The study delineated two forms of PSTs' usable knowledge for teaching science and exemplified how video-based instruments can be used to systematically investigate teachers' usable knowledge for teaching science.

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) refers to the content-specific knowledge that teachers use to promote students' learning of specific subject matter. PCK comprises multiple knowledge components that interact with each other when enacted in teachers' instructional practices. For many years, researchers lacked a robust methodological approach to unpack the structure and organisation of science teachers' PCK. In 2012, Park and Chen developed the PCK map approach to identify, quantify and visualise the complex interactions between PCK components that shape the instructional practices of science teachers. After a systematic literature search, we identified 22 studies from eleven geographical regions that used the PCK map approach to analyse the integration of science teachers' PCK components. An in-depth analysis of how the PCK map approach has been used, adapted and refined in these studies was performed. Findings reveal that some studies modified this approach in ways that did not retain the methodological strengths and robustness inherent in its original formulation. Some conflicting findings about the nature of the integration between PCK components are evident in the studies reviewed as well as in the broader literature on science teachers' knowledge. Issues related to the use of the PCK map approach and recommendations on how to use this approach to investigate science teachers' PCK are discussed.

ABSTRACT Cultivating in preservice science teachers (PSTs) the competence required to teach scientific models and modeling is a valued outcome of teacher preparation programs. However, science teacher educators face inherent tensions when designing and implementing teacher preparation experiences to achieve this outcome. In this systematic review, we first propose five sets of design tensions that science teacher educators need to navigate. We identify empirical intervention studies that aimed to develop PSTs' professional competence for teaching scientific models and modeling and analyze how the reviewed interventions addressed the design tensions, and examine their outcomes. Our analysis reveals that the reviewed interventions prioritized the development of PSTs' cognitive aspects of teacher professional competence for teaching scientific models and modeling while giving limited attention to affective–motivational aspects and the need to simultaneously develop aspects of PSTs' competence not specific to scientific models and modeling. The interventions were more successful in enhancing PSTs' declarative knowledge than enacted knowledge and affective–motivational aspects. However, the nature of modeling activities included in the interventions varied widely, posing challenges in identifying critical features that led to the identified positive outcomes. The interventions reported mixed outcomes in developing PSTs' enacted knowledge in teaching contexts, even when incorporating activities for knowledge application and knowledge transfer beyond the intervention context. We discuss the implications of these findings and provide recommendations for better‐preparing PSTs to teach scientific models and modeling. We also discuss the unique affordance of using the design tension framework to analyze the interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concept mapping is widely used as a tool for assessing students' understanding of science. To fully realize the diagnostic potential of concept mapping, a scoring method that not only provides an objective and accurate assessment of students' drawn concept maps but also provides a detailed understanding of students' proficiency and deficiencies in knowledge is necessary. However, few of the existing scoring methods focus on the latent constructs (e.g., knowledge, skills, and cognitive processes) that guide the creation of concept maps. Instead, they focus on the completeness of the concept map by assigning a composite score, which makes it difficult to generate targeted diagnostic feedback information for advancing students' learning. To apply the diagnostic classification model to the quantitative analysis of concept maps, this study introduced the novel application of the item expansion‐based diagnostic classification analysis (IE‐DCA) for this purpose. The IE‐DCA can not only assess students' concept mapping abilities along a continuum but also classify students according to their concept mapping attributes when constructing the concept maps. The application and benefits of this approach were illustrated using a physics concept‐mapping item related to particle and rigid body. Results showed that the estimated attribute profiles via the IE‐DCA provided more detailed information about students' latent constructs than the composite score. Overall, this study illustrates the feasibility and potential of applying IE‐DCA to analyze concept maps. Future applications of IE‐DCS in other assessments in science education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designing classroom assessment tasks that can gather meaningful assessment information is a complex undertaking. This is especially the case when it comes to developing assessment tasks to evaluate students' abilities to plan scientific investigations. Such assessment tasks should adequately elicit students' cognitive understandings related to designing valid and reliable experiments, not just their hands-on manipulative skills. This article proposes a set of guidelines for developing written assessment tasks that can surface students' cognitive understandings related to planning scientific investigations. We show how the checklist created based on the design guidelines can be used to analyze two classroom assessment tasks. The guidelines will be useful for teachers as they develop new or modify existing classroom assessment tasks to meaningfully evaluate students' abilities to plan scientific investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to a swift shift in hospitality and tourism (H&T) education from physical to online since the breakout of COVID-19, quality assurance measure is required to gauge effectiveness of students' online learning. This study aims to explore the influence of H&T students' personality traits on flow experience and performance in online classes. It further assesses the cross-regional comparison among three regions in Greater China (including Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao). A questionnaire instrument was developed and distributed in the abovementioned three regions. From a total of 895 respondents, results showed that the students' personality traits influenced their experience and performance in online classes in a few ways. In addition, regional differences in education were used as a moderator to examine potential learning behavior differences in the three regions, and result confirms their existence. Theoretical and managerial implications were then discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]