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This paper aims to broaden the conceptual approaches to understanding the complexity of student mobility in higher education (HE) across the Taiwan Strait, thereby exemplifying a contradictory mix of collaboration and competition that involves interplay among the various forces associated with global, regional and national settings. To achieve this goal, the paper provides an abstraction of 'trichotomisation', which explains the significance of the concepts of globalism, regionalism and nationalism in understanding cross-Strait student mobility, and thus shows its threefold nature. Specifically, it considers the intensification of cross-Strait student mobility in HE and the counter-reaction as a manifestation of globalism, a form of regionalism, and an expression of nationalism.

Few studies have examined willingness to communicate (WtC) changes resulting from short-term intensive immersion programmes. This study investigated the antecedents to and changes in WtC during one such programme held at a Macau university. The programme required students to reside on campus and participate in extensive task-based communicative language classes and fluency activities with a range of interlocutors from different backgrounds. Pre- and post-programme questionnaire data were collected, and regression analyses indicated perceived competence as the largest predictor for WtC. Repeated measure t-tests indicated significant improvement in WtC and the underlying components of perceived competence, language use anxiety and motivation for language learning as a result of the programme. The results support previous studies on WtC predictors, and suggest short-term intensive English programmes held within the home country of students can be as beneficial to WtC as longer term immersion or study abroad programmes.

Purpose: An internship is an essential part of vocational-oriented degree programs because it enhances the employability of graduates and prepares them for career development. Thus, it is important to understand how students view internships and whether they are satisfied with their internship experience. This paper explores the effects of organizational and individual factors on internship satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a literature review on internship, we propose a theoretical model in which organizational factors, including supervisor support and task clarity, and individual factors, including interns' perceived functional value and perceived social value, can lead to internship satisfaction while task clarity, perceived functional value and perceived social value can affect interns' self-initiative behavior. The proposed model was tested using responses from 161 Chinese students in Macao SAR. Findings: The results of structural equation modeling indicated that supervisor support and perceived social value had direct and significant impacts on internship satisfaction while task clarity and perceived functional value had direct and significant impacts on interns' self-initiative behavior. Additionally, supervisor support significantly influenced task clarity, perceived functional value and perceived social value. Originality/value: The paper identifies that supervisor support has a strong and significant impact on internship satisfaction. Additionally, the current study indicates that organizations should pay great attention to appoint the right work supervisors who are able to assign appropriate tasks to interns, provide clear guidance and facilitate social interaction between interns and other people.

This paper reports a longitudinal case study of developing, implementing, and evaluating group work in a Chinese school in Macau, and instances the salience of Chinese cultural dimensions of schools, teachers, and students in understanding and developing group work in the Chinese school in question. It analyses group work in a case study school and finds that challenges in developing group work in the school are similar to those reported in non-Chinese schools, whilst, at the same time, embracing key aspects of Chinese culture. Group work here challenges one-sided interpretations of "the Chinese learner" and embraces both individualism and collectivism, collaboration and competition, and academic priorities and social priorities. Several elements of Chinese culture, pedagogical culture, and everyday contexts combine compatibly in understanding group work in this Chinese school.

Facebook is the most popular social network site (SNS) globally, and WeChat is the top SNS in China, so few regions in the world exist where both SNSs are used simultaneously and are popular among the younger generation, and even fewer studies have been conducted on the comparison of the use of the two top SNSs. This study aims to fill this gap by examining the implications of using home country and global top SNSs for social capital among Chinese students from local (i.e., Macau SAR) and mainland China by adapting the analysis framework of the formation and maintenance of social capital--that is, to assess bridging, bonding social capital, and maintained social capital. A survey of undergraduate students at the only comprehensive public university of Macau (N = 348) reveals that both Facebook and WeChat use are positively associated with bridging social capital and bonding social capital, yet only WeChat use has a significant and positive relationship with maintained social capital. In contrast, the time spent on Facebook has a strong negative relationship with bridging and bonding social capital. On-campus living also has a positive relationship with both bridging and bonding social capital. All this suggests that keeping social connections virtually and physically simultaneously might provide greater benefits for users.

Augmented Reality (AR) flashcards have emerged as an important educational resource for language learning. However, there is limited research on its application in early childhood education. This article aims to explore the technology's value in early childhood education by comparing it with traditional paper flashcards. To that end, a study was conducted in which 98 children, aged between 5 and 6 years, and four teachers, all from a Macau kindergarten, took part. One group of children had animal-related vocabulary using AR flashcards, while another group used traditional flashcards. To measure the effectiveness of the two approaches, the children underwent pre- and posttests on their vocabulary and the teachers were interviewed. For the data analysis, paired-sample t tests and independent-sample t tests were utilized, and the level of effect was measured. The results showed that both AR and traditional flashcards could significantly improve children's vocabulary learning and that there was no significant difference in effectiveness between the AR and traditional flashcard methods. The teachers indicated that the children enjoyed the AR learning activities, but that there were certain challenges associated with using AR flashcards in a kindergarten setting.

Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao, in the Greater China Region, have similar yet different educational systems and curriculum standards, and each has performed well in international tests for science achievement. Using revised Bloom's taxonomy, this study analyzed and explored the similarities and differences among these four Chinese regions. Some common features of their junior high science curricula were identified: conceptual knowledge represents the largest proportion of the curricula, while meta-cognitive knowledge remains extremely marginalized, and the lower levels of cognitive process represented a significantly larger proportion of the curricula than the higher levels. This study also identified some differences: mainland China, Taiwan, and Macao emphasize the memory of factual and conceptual knowledge, while Hong Kong emphasizes understanding. In addition to conceptual knowledge, Taiwan attaches importance to procedural knowledge, while Hong Kong places more emphasis on factual knowledge. Finally, some recommendations are offered for the reform of the junior high school science curriculum in these four Chinese regions and beyond, and suggestions are made for future comparative studies of science curricula around the world.

Supplemental Instruction (SI) has widely been used in university classrooms around the world. However, many obstacles face SI -- including low student attendance, lack of faculty support, and recognition of today's online generation. This research helps to fill the gap in SI by posing to solve the problems mentioned above by extending SI into the classroom with the assistance of tutors. In response to the growing number of students and lack of space and instructors to accommodate the exploding enrollment, an initiative called "Tutors in the Classroom (TIC)" was started at a 4-year liberal arts college near Atlanta. TIC involved placing professional tutors, who were part-time and full-time employees of the on-campus tutoring labs and writing centers, into pre-college courses for matriculated students in English, Reading, English for Academic Purposes, and mathematics. Results of the now 2-year program show that not only are students' skills enhanced, but that retention levels and average GPA's have also increased. Grants have been awarded for the TIC program, and now attempts with adapting the program for students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in a university in Macau, China are underway. TIC has been recommended as an extension of Supplemental Instruction to develop students' higher-order thinking skills as well. [This paper was presented at the Internatioanal Writing Center Association Conference in 2012.]

The purpose of this study is to determine the predicting power of mathematics achievement from ICT variables including the Internet/entertainment use (IEU), program/software use (PRGUSE), confidence in internet tasks (INTCONF) and confidence in ICT high level tasks (HIGHCONF) based on PISA 2006 data. This study indicates that the ICT variables account for significant and low variance in mathematics achievement for each participating country. The IEU and PRGUSE are a negative and significant predictor of mathematics achievement whereas the INTCONF and HIGHCONF are a positive and significant predictor of mathematics achievement for the majority of participating countries. The results support the implication that the ICT is not entirely integrated into classroom and school environment.

In the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment, students from Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taipei, where the classroom disciplinary climate of schools was relatively strict, were top performers in mathematics. In this study, two-level linear analyses showed that the classroom disciplinary climate of schools significantly affected student mathematics achievement in the four Chinese economies, indicating that school and economy-level inequality were related to the classroom disciplinary climate of schools. Additionally, residual analyses showed that students in different percentiles within economies, as well as students in the same percentiles of different economies, benefited or hindered differently from classroom disciplinary climate of schools, hinting at shrinking individual-level differences in student mathematics achievement. Most students in Shanghai and Hong Kong benefited from an orderly disciplinary climate in their schools, particularly medium and high performers in Shanghai, while most students in Taipei and Macao suffered from a disruptive disciplinary climate in their schools. Statistically, Taipei would replace Shanghai and top the four Chinese economies in student mathematics performance if all schools in the four had a disciplinary climate similar to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average.

Internationalization of higher education to include international, intercultural, or global components into the delivery of postsecondary education has drawn increasing attention in the last two decades. A globally relevant course focusing on the "Social Contexts of Addiction" engaged students' online interaction at a Canadian university with learners from across various institutions in mainland China, Macau, and Hong Kong. Although "internationalization at home" (IaH) is one of the most prevalent themes in the internationalization literature, empirical evaluation of its merits along with the challenges of its implementation is still limited. In this article, the authors used student and faculty feedback to identify the design factors of this online IaH course that facilitated its success and transformative benefits. Discussion highlighted several follow-up strategic initiatives to broaden the adoption and conversations on internationalization in teaching, and the necessity of multilevel support and alignments among government, university, and faculty leadership to sustain internationalization efforts across the curriculum.

Moodle is widely used in higher education institutions in this digital age. With the growing popularity of Moodle use in education, this study aimed to research on the factors that influence student users' intentions to adopt Moodle for learning purposes in Macau. A total of 564 students from nine departments at the University of Macau responded to a survey in which ten constructs from a framework that integrated the Diffusion of Innovation Theory and Technology Acceptance Model, were measured. The results of this study showed that the research model had a good fit. Two variables--usefulness and ease of use--had significantly influenced Macau students' attitudes towards Moodle use. Other variables such as usefulness, attitude, and perceived behavioral control were found to be important determinants of students' behavioral intentions. Furthermore, usefulness was significantly associated with ease of use, output quality, trialability, as well as subjective norm. Students' perceptions on the ease of use was significantly influenced by technology complexity and trialability. On the whole, the proposed research model had explained 66% of the variance of Macau university students' behavioral intentions to use Moodle. This study contributed to deepening our understanding of technology acceptance theories by contextualizing the current study within the Macau higher education.

This paper reports findings of a mixed methods study examining private school teachers' perceptions of efficacy in dealing with the challenges presented by inclusive education in Macao. This is highly pertinent after the Government invited consultation to propose changes to amendments of the Decree Law of 1996 concerning the education of students with Special Education Needs (SEN) which will likely see private schools being required to accept these students in the future. Within the context of teacher preparedness for inclusive education, the study found that a number of teachers felt that they were not at all prepared to teach students with SEN. Whilst some teachers suggested that they lacked skills and knowledge in teaching in inclusive classrooms, some felt overwhelmed with the challenges. The teachers proposed that they would need to know how to provide instructional adaptations and modifications to support students with SEN. Implications for continuous development of teacher training and education are discussed within the context of improving teacher efficacy and how private school teachers could better respond to the challenges of inclusive education in Macao.

While research on peer feedback in second language (L2) writing at university/college level has proliferated, scholars have conducted less research on peer feedback in L2 academic and scholarly writing. Drawing upon multiple sources of data including semi-structured interviews, stimulated recalls, online interviews via WeChat, first and revised drafts of master's theses, peer written feedback, audio-recordings of oral peer feedback conferences and the finalised master's theses, this case study examines how three master's students affectively, behaviourally and cognitively engaged with peer feedback on drafts of their thesis in a Master of Education programme at a Macau university. The findings show that the relationship between sub-constructs within each dimension and the relationships between the three dimensions of student engagement were interconnected in a dynamic and complex way. While there were individual differences among the three students' engagement, their affective engagement could promote or negatively influence their behavioural and cognitive engagement. This study builds our understanding of the multifaceted nature of master's students' engagement with peer feedback. It provides pedagogical implications about how peer feedback can enhance the quality of master's students' academic writing and sheds light on how to guide students to establish scholarly learning communities in higher education.

In English for academic purposes courses, group oral presentations are quite common but essay writing tends to be seen as an individual endeavour, albeit with scope for peer review. This article discusses action research reflecting on student perceptions of a framework to support students through a semester-long collaborative essay assignment in an English-medium instruction university in Macau. The framework presented incorporates collaborative and individual assignment tasks, assisted by information and communications technology, to support the collaborative process and facilitate the assessment of the individual within the group. Even though writing in a group may take more time and effort, it is viewed favourably by the majority of students due to the additional learning gains to be made by writing collaboratively, including the increased quality of ideas and the social interactions (face-to-face and online) required to come to agreement.

Language choices in the economic field of late capitalist societies are shaped by a combination of local, national, and global forces as well as historical, political, and economic factors. This study conducts an analysis of language choices in the linguistic landscape of Macao's heritage tourism (i.e. signposts of tourist attractions) and gaming tourism (i.e. casino promotional brochures). The findings show similarities and differences in the two sectors in terms of language choices and some tensions emerging behind such language choices in constructing Macao with different voices. Unlike previous studies which find the commodification of one national or ethnic language for profit, the case of Macao illustrates the commodification of multilingualism for profit. Despite the similarities and differences, language choices in both signposts and brochures feature reductive translingualism under the neoliberal ideology which values the instrumental function of language for profit-making purposes.

The number of university-industry cooperation programs has increased rapidly over the last few years. Research in this field is spare. This study therefore explores this gap with particular focus on the relationship of student motivation, evaluation of program, students' attitudes and career aspirations in tourism and hospitality university-industry cooperation program. Using students from a university-industry cooperation program in Macau as a sample, this study collected 151 usable questionnaires from undergraduate students. The finding of this study enriched the knowledge of the education system relative to students' behaviors. The implications and recommendations for both hospitality educators and practitioners were also discussed.

In recent years, research on students' scientific competencies has generated much discussion. According to the PISA 2015 Assessment and Analytical Framework, both scientific competencies and attitudes towards science -- interest in science, valuing scientific approaches to enquiry (or epistemological beliefs about science), and environmental awareness -- are integral aspects of scientific literacy. However, few studies have focused on the relationships between them. This article examines how students' scientific competencies are affected by their attitudes. Based on a theoretical analysis, the present study argues that the three attitudinal factors have a direct impact on scientific competencies, interest has an immediate influence on the other two attitudes, and epistemological beliefs are directly affected by environmental awareness. To test this hypothesis, a model was constructed to verify such relationships. PISA 2015 assessment instruments were used for data collection. The participants were 25,658 students from different parts of China, containing Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed for data analysis. The results confirmed our hypothesis. The way in which Chinese students' attitudes affected their scientific competencies did not differ (to a statistically significant level) by gender or district. The limitations and implications of this research are discussed below.

This study examines the influence of family income on student achievement in mathematics utilising data from the parents' questionnaire for nine countries participating in the OECD's 2012 PISA study. It finds non-trivial effects for family income that were consistently larger than, or comparable to, the effects of more commonly used measures of socio-economic background: parents' education and occupational status. Its effects ranged from weak (Hong Kong and Macau) to moderate (Belgium, Chile and Portugal) and were often stronger than the effects of parents' education and occupational status. There was no evidence that the effects of family income were mediated through cultural resources, wealth (indexed by household possessions) or educational resources in any country. This suggests that the effects of family income reflect largely unmeasured aspects of families rather than resources in the home. In Belgium and Portugal, much of the effect of family income could be attributed to prior knowledge and skills in mathematics.

This paper investigates measurement invariance as it relates to migration background using the Program for International Student Assessment measure of social belonging. We explore how the use of two measurement invariance techniques provide insights into differential item functioning using the alignment method in conjunction with logistic regression in the case of multiple group comparisons. Social belonging is a central human need, and we argue that immigration background is important factor when considering how an individual interacts with a survey/items about belonging. Overall results from both the alignment method and ordinal logistic regression, interpreted through a diffractive lens, suggest that it is inappropriate to treat peoples of four different immigration backgrounds within the countries analyzed as exchangeable groups.

This case study explored the institutional, programmatic, and classroom literacy curricula of a Canadian offshore school in Macau (school pseudonym: MCS). Undergirded by the conceptual tool of cosmopolitan literacies, this study specifically examined the network effects that influenced the forms of cosmopolitan literacies in MCS's three levels of curriculum. In exploring the English immersion-based programmatic curriculum for MCS, data show a universalistic vision of literacy that foregrounds essentialism and universalism in world and Canadian literature in English. Yet school policy-makers and teachers concerted efforts to adapt the parochial, Canadian programmatic curricula and responded to students' diverse needs and fluid identities in the local/global intersections. Findings also relate English and Mandarin literacy teachers' agency, collaboration, and creativity in enacting cosmopolitan literacy practices in the transnational education classrooms. The paper ends with a reconfiguration of cosmopolitan literacies for curriculum-making, pedagogy, and assessment in the 21st century interconnected schooling contexts.

Business schools strive to improve students' analytical skills by incorporating advanced business application software courses into their curricula. This study examined how business school students perceived the ease of using the software and the usefulness of using the software in learning. The study also explored whether and how students' perceived ease of use and usefulness of the software affected their attitude towards the use of business software and their intention to use the software. Data were collected from 159 Chinese business school students in a higher education institution in Macao. Results showed students generally agreed the software was easy to learn and use, and they agreed the software was useful. The results of structural equation modeling showed that perceived ease of use was directly and indirectly related to attitude towards the use of business software through its effect on perceived usefulness, whereas attitude towards the use of business software strongly affected the intention to use the software.

A fast developing industry worldwide, tourism demands a monumental extent of resources, and at times devastates and condemns the very own environments that are fundamental to the economic survival of organizations and the sustainability of travel destinations. The purpose of the study is to link three established scientific themes on survival and sustainability to empirical results in the field of economic decision and behavior. The discussion of this link may also represent the originality value of the paper. Departing from the results of a series of decision games obtained under a quasi-experimental design, behavioral patterns were analyzed and extrapolated to explore the terminal effects of competition trends on the survival and economic viability of organizations and travel destinations in restricted environments. The findings show that the identified competition tendency neutralized an important share of the economic potential offered by the decision game, with significant negative effects on the economic efficiency. If persistent, the competition tendency is expected to produce long term effects on the sustainability and economic survival of organizations and travel destinations in restricted environments.

Background: Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore are the top five cities/countries with the cheapest fixed line broadband as proportion of monthly income. It is interesting to know that several decades ago, they were still among the list of developing nations, struggling for survival and relief. However, they are climbing to the top in ICT development now. Aims: This paper reviews the ICT development in school education of Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore with respect to their social, geographical, and economic backgrounds. Johannessen's three orders of benchmarks are proposed for the comparison. Method: Literature reviews on recent reports, research articles, books and internet data were used to understand the current situation of the ICT development in education for Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore. Conclusion: It is clear that these three cities' determination and relative amount that had invested in the development of ICT in education were enormous when compared with the US investment. Among these three cities, the investment of Singapore has been much larger than the other two. Singapore's apparent leading in the development of ICT in education is not an accident, especially for the first benchmarks. For the second and third benchmarks, Macau lags behind Hong Kong and Singapore, this is partially due to Macau education system is comparatively much liberal than the other two. (Contains 5 tables.)

Background: In PISA 2009, seven East Asian countries rank high among the 65 participating countries, but some of the differences among the seven countries are small to be of substantive meaning. Aims: This paper is an attempt to fine tune the comparisons for better understanding of the situation in East Asian. Sample: Data of the seven East Asian countries were pulled from the PISA 2009 report and re-analyzed. Method: Pair-wise comparisons were made by way of effect size on Reading, Mathematics, and Science. Results: The overall patterns of differences show that Shanghai-China is definitely ahead of all the others. Korea, Hong Kong-China, and Singapore are similar in performance and form a cluster. Japan, Chinese Taipei, and Macao-China are similar and form another cluster at the lower end of achievement. Conclusion: Instead of ranking the seven countries with seven different ranks, it is more meaningful to cluster them into three groups to avoid spurious precision. In other words, league tables should not differentiate where there are no meaningful differences. (Contains 4 tables.)

A basic premise in narrative therapy and inquiry is that life story telling is a mechanism by which experiences are rendered meaningful within some form of structure. However, narrative inquiry has to take cognisance of difficulties ensuing from discursive practices for different populations when eliciting their life stories. In this article I explicate a unique method, the Collage Life story Elicitation Technique (CLET), geared towards scaffolding life story remembering. Based on the theoretical underpinnings of social constructionism (Gergen, 2000), symbolic interactionism (Berg, 2009) and performative strategies in social science research the CLET provides a mode of expression and narrative performance for positioning the dialogical self. As the individual engages in collage-making and narrating, cognitive, motivational and affective aspects of autobiographical memories emerge while telling her or his life story. Different forms of positioning in the dialogical self and significant attachments to people, objects and life events co-exist in the verbal and non-verbal communications elicited with this technique. As suggested by the pilot study, the CLET provides a structure within which non-English speaking participants could explore multiple forms of positioning in the dialogical self without the restrictions of a verbal interview conversation. (Contains 1 table and 3 figures.)

The Portuguese came to Macau in the 16th century, Macao has become part of China again since 1999. Under the strong economic growth in recent years, the Macao government has invested substantial human, material and financial resources for the implementation of IT in education in Macau since 2001. This paper reviewed the development of IT in education in Macao, including hardware development, the integration of IT into teaching and learning and other informal forms of support by the government to the development of IT education. Although the development of Information Technology (IT) in education in Macao has progressed rapidly in the last few years, there are still many problems. The author makes some suggestions alleviating the shortcomings.

Education is important for the sustainable development for Macau because there is no natural resource in this area. The only thing that the city can count on to survive and excel is the knowledge and skills of its people. Currently, there is limited literature on the education system of Macau, in particular the area of special education. It is the intent of this paper to draw more attention and discussion about this field. This paper presents an overall objective view of the development of special education in Macau from academic year 1996-97 to 2006-07 by looking at the figures provided by the authority. The figures cover three major areas: the number of schools, the number of students and the number of teachers. Based on the figures and the social conditions of Macau, our study reveals the challenges that Macau is facing in terms of special education development and offers some possible solutions. (Contains 8 tables.)

For centuries, Macau's schooling has embraced laissez-faire market principles, a stasis that from AY2016/17 is being changed by the government offering schools tuition coupons conditional on their adoption of a common school curriculum. A study of part of this new common curriculum, the development of a music curriculum for junior secondary schools in Macau, addresses three research questions: (a) What are music teachers' perceptions and how do these frame the implementation of Macau's common music curriculum? (b) Do music teachers' expectations align with those of the central government? (c) Do music teachers perceive that they impact on or are impacted by this innovation? Discussion of the findings highlights a controversy about the role of teachers within curriculum development--should teachers be center staged (Lawton (2012 [1980]) or is this view an oversimplification based on false assumptions of a social democratic tradition (Whitty (1985, 2012 [1981])?

This article reports a comparative study on the reasons for pre-service student teachers becoming teachers in Hong Kong and Macau. The study adopted a mixed methods research design, with 459 and 137 student teachers completing a questionnaire on teaching motivation and 35 and 15 student teachers joining a follow-up interview in Hong Kong and Macau, respectively. The study found that student teachers in both societies share commonality in their altruistic and intrinsic motivations, i.e. a sense of vocation. The difference in student teachers' motivation reflects the contrasting perceptions of teachers' work and the teaching profession in connection with the different educational systemic factors in Macau and Hong Kong. Government-initiated quantitative expansion and quality enhancement in education set the backdrop of an aspiring teaching profession with promising prospects as perceived by the student teachers in Macau. In contrast, the move towards "centralized-decentralization" with a focus on excellence, competition and accountability in education at a time of teacher surplus results in a demanding profession with gloomy prospects as perceived by the Hong Kong student teachers. These differences add to our understanding of how the development trajectories of different education systems and teaching professions influence young people's motivation to become teachers in different societies. The study also provides insights for initial teacher education and offers suggestions for the education communities of the two societies.

This article explores how the past mobilities of academics affect their current research output (and its multidisciplinarity). Five types of mobility are used simultaneously in the analysis. Field mobility and transnational educational mobility are associated with academics' educational path, whereas transnational job mobility, intra-sectoral job mobility and inter-sectoral job mobility refer to their career path. The analysis is based on a representative sample of academics based in Hong Kong and Macau. Results show that intra-sectoral job mobility (up to a threshold) and transnational job mobility positively affect research output and its multidisciplinarity, whereas inter-sectoral job mobility, field mobility and transnational educational mobility exert slight or no effect. Nested analyses of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM academics as well as experienced and junior academics offer further insight into the roles of these mobilities. Impacts of mobile experience were stronger among junior than senior academics, and in STEM fields than non-STEM fields. The article discusses these findings along with the significance of considering mobilities rather than mobility when analysing academic trajectories and the determinants of academic research production.

By drawing on Foucault's theory of subjectification, this study presents a case study of two experienced teachers' in-service learning in the managerialist climate of Macau. The results indicate that the prevailing policies and administrative strategies on in-service learning served as the apparatus of managerialism working on teachers and constituting their subject as entrepreneurs. At the same time, however, experienced teachers were able to rely on the time-honoured Confucian philosophy to negotiate their learning experience with the dominating managerialism. Their in-service learning took place in and through their relationship with others and this learning, in turn, facilitated the creation and sustainability of the social harmony of the relationship. In-service learning therefore is essentially a lifelong ethical project that aims to cultivate their potential to become a Confucian sage, rather than an entrepreneur.

In the last decade, the Chinese government has called for deep collaboration between Hong Kong, Macau (the two special administrative regions of China) and cities in Southern part of the country to foster economic and social development across the region. More recently, the Chinese government initiated a strategic project to develop the Pan-Pearl River Delta region into a Greater Bay Area like successful bay economies in Tokyo and Florida. This article sets out against the wider policy context to critically examine the reality in the responses and implementation of government policy in China when serious attempts have been made to encourage students originally from Hong Kong and Macau to study in Chinese universities in the Mainland and look for career development upon their graduation. This article has found that the promotion of national identity through higher education and graduate employment has not been successful because of failure of policy coordination, policy interpretations and implementation.

This case study employs a narrative approach to uncover the voice of a visual arts teacher who has been marginalized in a Macao private school where its teaching subjects have been structurally classified by means of (market) value. The teacher in this study adopted various forms of resistance under pervasive neoliberalism. Yet, with the inherent critical capacity and possibilities being dissolved and disarmed, these acts have largely ended up facilitating the expansion of her resilience. While she has paid efforts and successively 'survived' adapting to the challenging and threatening circumstance, and thereby has obtained a feeling of de-marginalization at school, these everyday forms of resistance have inadvertently reinforced and reproduced the very oppressive structure they aimed to transgress, which suggests the potential of this teacher being further re-marginalized.

The author's aim is to explore the school principal training and development landscape in Macau. The continuities and changes in the professional development of principals in Macau over the last two decades are identified. Using Huber's theoretical framework, key pre- and in-service policy documents from 1993 to 2017 that have shaped the development are examined to better understand principal development and assess the role of the government in determining the aims, methods and substance of the development. The author provides a concise description of the status quo of the professional development of principals in Macau, particularly focusing on providers, orientations, conceptions, and multiple approaches. She argues that although training efforts are intended to gradually increase, there is a lack of hierarchical classification guidance and systematic establishment; limited formal evaluation being done to evaluate the effectiveness of the development programs while coping with the educational changes, the government still sticks to the traditional way and thus the training provided sometimes cannot keep pace with the current situation. However, there are some things that the government can do to improve the current situation. The primary concern should be to focus on providing effective transitions into the principal role, improving the assessment system, and establishing a systematic knowledge base in the years to come.

International large-scale assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have emerged as important tools for understanding educational systems within Asia and around the world. Although the achievement scales tend to capture the majority of the world's attention the background scales have become important tools in their own right. To that end, testing organizations such as the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are developing background scales and providing them in their datasets. However, unlike the scales created to estimate achievement, considerably less work has been done to examine the quality and comparability of these background measures. In this paper, we purposely examine four culturally similar Chinese speaking economies and test the quality of OECD reported scales. Specifically, using both factor analysis and item response theory we evaluate the level of measurement invariance of science-related disposition scales in PISA 2015. Our analysis shows that model fit of the science self-efficacy scale is acceptable, while the scales of epistemological beliefs and science activities are not statistically valid and should not be used to compare within or between economies. We conclude by discussing the need for more involvement by non-OECD members in PISA questionnaire and scale development.

Consequences of competition for global university rankings, such as changes in funding modes, have been extensively discussed in the field of higher education. However, few studies have reviewed its implications on knowledge production. This study provides a contextualised method for theorising the implications of this competition on the development of East Asian higher education, specifically teacher education. It identifies the new forms of knowledge being produced in two teacher education institutions in Hong Kong and Macau by reviewing the publications of new recruits in a five-year period. The study considers the following variables: author(s), date and form of publication, abstract, title, keywords, journal name, language, data source, research context and methods. The findings show that the dominant publication trends are towards quantitative research and multiple authors. Psychological research is the most popular area and studies of other long-term issues in teacher education are being marginalised.

A random sample of 1,313 grades 7-9 Chinese language arts teachers in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taipei were surveyed about their instructional writing practices. When asked about their college, inservice, and personal preparation, three out of four teachers indicated that they were poorly prepared to teach writing. They were slightly positive about themselves and writing, their students and writing, and their effectiveness as writing teachers. Textbooks, school guidelines, national standards, and high school entrance exams played a prominent role in shaping how they taught writing, but a sizable minority of teachers indicated that they mostly designed their own writing program. Writing classes occurred infrequently, as just one in six teachers held a class more often than once every two weeks. Teachers used evidence-based practices, but such procedures were typically applied only once a month. Students completed a broad range of writing activities during the school year and applied a variety of revising and planning procedures. Consistent with sociocultural theory, teachers from the four locations evidenced differences on almost every variable studied, although the observed differences were mostly a matter of degree (i.e., teachers applied certain practices more or less frequently). Teachers' preparation, beliefs about writing, and frequency of writing classes predicted their instructional practices and how frequently students engaged in specific writing activities.

In Macao, the government has initiated a debate regarding revisions in the Decree Law in order to promote a more inclusive schooling system. In this Special Administrative Region of China, inclusive education is one of three possible types of special education that are likely be legislated in the future. The way the teachers perceive the different aspects related to inclusive education, namely the principles, concepts and law, is essential for its full implementation. The aim of this study is to understand teachers' perceptions about the proposed amendments in the consultation document for changes in the special education regime. In particular, we focus on teachers' acceptance of the recommended role of parents, the proposed placement models and expectations for teacher training. A mixed-methods approach with a survey of a sample of 500 teachers in private schools and interviews to a sub-sample of 20 provide the data. While agreeing in principle with the majority of the proposed changes in the Decree Law, there were several reservations made by the teachers, especially regarding the extent of parental choice, placement decisions and teacher training. Recommendations to continue the pathway for a more inclusive education system in Macao and for further research are made.

A considerable amount of research has investigated the separate roles of motivation and identity in language learning. This study aimed to examine these two important constructs jointly by exploring the relationship between motivation, identity processing styles, and English learning among high school students. The hypotheses were empirically tested using questionnaire data collected from 187 Macau high school students. Correlation analysis found that only self-determined motivation was significantly positively related to academic performance in English and that none of the five identity processing styles was relevant. Further hierarchical regression analysis revealed that after controlling for age and gender, identification with commitment and ruminative exploration both negatively predicted English performance. Significant interaction effects were found between exploration in depth and self-determination and between ruminative exploration and self-determined motivation. However, ruminative exploration was the only significant predictor of academic performance when the students had low levels of self-determined motivation.