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As a popular research topic spanning a few decades, social support research has generated voluminous empirical findings which have shown the huge potential of utilising its benefits in different occupational fields apart from the fields of health psychology and medical health where this topic originated. The previous chapter clarifies the different conceptualisations of social support research and the instruments that measure the effects/outcomes, as well as methodological concerns. This chapter continues to establish the theoretical ground of social support research by elaborating the concepts related to psychological well-being and describing the psychological adjustment of people who need support. It then explores the conditions of effective social support giving. First, it describes the central concept—well-being—a concept being used to conceptualise its benefits for human beings. Second, based on the backdrop provided by the well-being literature, the chapter further discusses the emotional status of various groups of people in society who encounter life situations and experience critical circumstances which may cause them much effort to regulate their emotions and adjust themselves in living in their social environment. Finally, the conditions and factors that lead to effective social support are explored, addressing a list of parameters that describe effective social support giving. In sum, the chapter aims to achieve the following purposes: (1) to present a comprehensive definition of well-being and its associated psychological theories; (2) to discuss the inner self and emotional struggles of groups of needy people in society; (3) to identify facilitative conditions of social support and effective social support giving and (4) to discuss the implications of the theories of well-being and effective social support strategies to the situation of teaching in schools. The chapter ends with a list of suggestions about effective social support measures and some conditions that inhibit the effectiveness of social support. It suggests that the effectiveness of social support giving is dependent upon the nature of offering the support, types of support given at different times of need, support givers’ relationship with the support recipient, support givers’ experience, gender, common cultural traits and personalities of support receivers. The content of this chapter is planned in a way which leads readers to construct the knowledge of and appreciate the value of social support, the implications for application to the field of education are also discussed at the end.

This chapter provides the conclusion to the book. It presents the key concepts and investigation results explored in Chaps. 2– 6, followed by the key recommendations, a statement of the contribution of the book and future research directions and limitation. The chapter begins with a discussion of the philosophical beliefs encountered in the classical literature, acknowledging social support as a positive virtue that can help one enjoy a well-lived life. It further discusses the decline of social network systems, and the social values that continue to undermine the healthy development of youngsters in our twenty-first century, knowledge-based society. The rising trend of poor mental health worldwide is outlined, which supplies the background to suggest a renewed interest of social support in education. A synthesised report of the key content of the book is presented. It begins with the description of various social support assumptions and their functions, and the research issues related to social support. It further describes teachers’ social support and other social support resources in the classroom as reviewed in the book. Based on the review of social support across the fields of health psychology and education, a meta-theory is derived suggesting that social bonds, relationships and a supportive environment are crucial factors to support learning in schools. The results of studies on expert teachers’ social support behaviour are reported. Social support is realised as an important and crucial trait that enhances teacher’s teaching expertise, and the triad of teaching expertise is recommended as a potential topic for further investigation regarding teaching expertise. The results of studies of social support givers in the role of teacher are discussed. It suggests that social support giving is positively associated with teachers’ self-efficacy, and that teachers’ self-efficacy can drive their career advancement and overcome the pressure teachers may experience in teaching. The results suggest that ‘love for students’ is a trait of good teachers, and social support as the behaviour driven by the love for students helps teachers develop teaching expertise, and also leads to teachers’ better career development. Recommendations derived from the book are then discussed. They suggest the core values for establishing a supportive social environment to support student learning, and proposes directions for teacher training and professional development, and ways to enhance teacher-efficacy in the organisational context. On the basis of its content, this chapter discusses the contributions the book makes to the academic community, makes suggestions for further investigation and discusses the book’s limitations.

The chapter gives readers a comprehensive understanding of the research on social support in the field of health psychology. It acts as the foundation of this book to provide readers with a fundamental knowledge of social support; and the ideas in this chapter are linked to the other chapters of the book. The first two parts of the content cover the discussion of the meaning of social support and the research approaches of this topic in the literature. The third part discusses the implications of social support for education. It seeks to accomplish the following purposes: (1) To describe the key perspectives of conceptualising social support research, and relevant concepts which explain each of the study approaches with reference to theoretical and empirical literature; (2) To discuss some pertinent issues that relate to research in social support and suggest instruments to be used for the topics of study; (3) To draw implications for education and discuss potential topics for further study in subsequent chapters of the book. The preliminary ideas suggested in the chapter will be the guide to the direction of this book, which will be followed-up and investigated in subsequent chapters of the book, to draw connections between social support and the practice of education. The chapter suggests the potential of connecting social support to education in order to generate theory and practice that benefits students as support receivers. The chapter also hints at the potential area of studying the benefits of social support for support givers. The potential topics related to learners and teachers as recipients and providers of social support in the context of education will be further explored in subsequent chapters of the book.

Social support is a topic of study related to the link between psychological processes and health. Social support can be explained as the type of communication between support recipients and providers that reduces uncertainties, and enables relationships and functions that enhance support recipients’ perception of personal control in their life experience (Adelman & Albrecht in Communicating social support. Sage Publications, 1987). Teaching is an interactional process between learners and teachers in the school environment. Teachers, as more knowledgeable others, give support to students in order to master a certain amount of content knowledge of a discipline, which demonstrates their role as a nurturer (Lam in There is no fear in love: The giving of social support to students enhances teachers’ career development, 2017). In the classroom, student peers’ scaffoldings and social interaction involve learners in a community for friendship and academic learning, and the school as a whole creates an environment to foster learners’ social and academic development. Learning in school largely relies on different sources of social support. This chapter investigates the potential of social support in teaching and learning contexts. It attempts to explore teachers’ supportive behaviours and other support sources in the classroom environment and the corresponding outcomes on student learning, to draw implications from theory and practice in teaching. The current chapter seeks to accomplish the following: Identify the theoretical reasons behind the link between social support and education, especially related to teaching and learning in the classroom; Explore the support documented in the literature mainly related to teacher social support, and generally about other support sources; Related to the above, what impact social support behaviours and practice from teachers and other support sources could have on students in terms of educational outcomes; Identify exemplary teaching strategies that utilise social support; Discuss implications from the above and further research directions.

The investigation of social support in learning and teaching in Chaps. 4 and 5 informs a form of practice that illustrates the characteristics of social support. This chapter continues to explore the benefits of social support giving for support givers in the role of teachers. It seeks to accomplish the following objectives: How is social support giving related to teachers’ satisfaction? Is providing social support to students related positively to teacher development? What are the attributes that determine teachers’ positive development in the teaching profession? Do mental health issues have anything to do with teachers’ lack of satisfaction in teaching? If so, why?

The discussion of social support sources for students in educational settings in Chap. 4 recommends the need for understanding teachers’ classroom behaviours. This chapter continues to explore teachers’ social support behaviours by expert teachers at the classroom level. Since expert teachers are often suggested as effective teachers who can benefit students in both the cognitive and affective aspects, and their teaching is found to be characterised by relationship qualities and teacher attitudinal qualities, they are a relevant target for study in order to identify social support behaviours. The chapter seeks to accomplish the following purposes: To identify social support behaviours of the four expert teachers in classroom teaching and conceptualise the expertise these behaviour features To identify the motivation for learning of students who study in the classes taught by the four teachers To make implications and suggestions regarding theory and practice in learning and teaching. This chapter reports on a qualitative study based on classroom observations and interviews of 4 teachers regarding their teaching, and a questionnaire survey on a total of 144 junior form students on their motivation for learning, in a secondary school in Hong Kong. The analysis of teachers’ instructional behaviour shows a particular style of teaching among the four teachers. In delivering the lessons, the teachers engaged students into a series of dialogic discourse which engaged students in metacognitive learning. Such dialogic discourse led students to take part in exchanging views in the classroom which was safe, encouraging and challenging. Students were highly motivated under the four teachers’ guidance and instruction. The findings of the study resulted in a ‘triad of teaching expertise’ as a theoretical framework that conceptualises teachers’ teaching expertise. This triad includes teacher commitment, communication skills and metacognitive teaching skills. The study argues that teachers’ genuine care is an underlying trait which is significant in producing outstanding teaching, as teachers’ care prompts them to render meticulous support in guiding students through the learning process, which results in better learning outcomes for students. Recommendations for teacher education and training, and school leadership to promote high-quality teaching are made. Limitations of the study and future research directions are discussed.

This chapter seeks to examine how formative feedback shapes students’ motivation and positive emotions in the higher education setting. We propose that formative feedback has a central role to play in fostering students’ motivation toward their learning, in that it does not only directly impact their motivation toward the courses where formative feedback practices are present, but also foster their overall motivational tendencies, through the promotion of positive emotions. Looking at a formative feedback project in a HK higher education institution, the current chapter reports a quasi-experiment to investigate the impacts of theoretically derived formative feedback practices on students’ extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and their positive emotions experienced during the courses in which the practices were put forth. The research’s findings suggested that formative feedback leads to increases in intrinsic motivation to attend the courses and students’ overall positive emotions. It also exerts a ‘protecting’ effect on their extrinsic motivation to attend the courses. Implications of these results are discussed. The impact of this study, especially on its contribution to scholarship of learning and teaching (SoLT), is discussed.

For years, formative assessment has been a popular topic for educational reforms across the globe. This form of assessment demands high level of student participation and teachers’ continuous feedback during and after instruction time and is recommended as a useful means of learning for students in both the schools and higher education institutions in the twenty-first century. The current chapter discusses the underpinnings of formative assessment, being a newly promoted assessment concept in the education literature. It explores the main theories in formative assessment and its relationships with student motivation and self-regulated learning. The chapter further discusses exemplar formative feedback practices derived from this body of the literature, and they are research-based practices applicable to different classroom settings. Suggestions are made to recognize formative assessment as an important strategy of reforming education; this echoes the ideas of scholarship of learning and teaching (SoLT) in promoting professional learning for improving student learning.

By conducting in-depth interviews with new teachers who are about to become full-time teachers and then reinterviewing them two years later, the author of this article presents how beginning teachers think and feel about teaching and describes the challenges they face as beginning teachers in the context of Hong Kong. The stories of the teachers, as revealed by the interviews, suggest that changing educational ideals, school leaders’ management style, and workload issues are some of the important challenges faced by beginning teachers. A short review of work on effective school research and school leadership suggests how school leaders can create an environment that is conducive to teachers’ professional development.

Using a longitudinal design, the job satisfaction and career development of beginning teachers are explored in the present study. Beginning teachers were initially interviewed after graduation from the teacher training programme and then after gaining a two-year teaching experience. The results are presented in a fourfold typology in which the initial teaching orientation of teachers interacts with the school environment to produce different teaching outlooks. School factors, such as volume of non-teaching workload, equitability in the distribution of work, and professional autonomy, are found to influence the job satisfaction and teaching motivation of teachers significantly.

This essay presents a reflective account of a preservice teacher’s experience in her fieldwork practice. The author, a professor in the preservice teacher’s education institute, acted as a critical friend and joined in the reflection as an equal. Based on the voices of the preservice teacher and a group of primary teachers, this essay presents a genuine description of the participants’ story. It tells about the preservice teacher’s progressive educational beliefs in the implementation of project learning: catering to diversities, adopting authentic learning methods, and promoting cooperative learning. The in-service teachers rejected this progressive pedagogy, dismissing it as too playful and undefined, and they suggested that it creates classroom discipline problems. The author connects this teacher’s experience to the specific areas that provide necessary conditions for reform: teacher professionalism, professional knowledge, and the organizational structure of schools.

In response to several major curriculum reforms in Hong Kong since 2000, schools were required to initiate policies that catered for learner diversity. As well academic achievement, the reforms also emphasized the affective and social outcomes of the learning experience. A whole-school approach to learner diversity includes students with low academic achievement and mild disabilities, with schools being free to develop policies and practices inline with the needs of the students, teachers, and parents. Against the Chinese cultural context, where high academic achievement is highly valued, this study describes the affective and social outcomes of students in one Hong Kong primary school that streamed students according to achievement level. Four hundred and ten students across Primary 3–5 responded to four instruments measuring academic self-concept, alienation from school, teacher–students relationship, and social integration. The responses showed that, when studying the regular curriculum, students in the low-achievement group reported greater levels of alienation and lowest levels of social integration compared with students with the highest levels of achievement. On the other hand, low-achieving students who studied a differentiated curriculum reported affective and social outcomes more consistent with the responses from the high-achieving students. The results suggest that there is a mismatch between the aims and practice of the educational policy reflecting learner diversity and the cultural expectations of both parents and students.

Two decades after I left teaching primary school for a university career, I observed students and teachers in a mainstream primary school in Hong Kong. There were three main student communities within the school. Those who were labeled extremely low achievers were taught in a small class of not more than 12; these students were taught a curriculum that featured art and play. They appeared to enjoy school life very much. Another group of extremely low academic ability students were taught a curriculum that followed the mainstream. This group had adjustment problems that resulted in emotional reactions and frustrations. The final group were the low academic ability students who were integrated into a larger class with the average students. This small group behaved aggressively and constantly created disruptions and discipline problems. My observation of this school has updated my understanding of students, teachers, and the school environment after 20 years. My reflections do not focus on a compari...

Teacher Professional Development” (aka teacher PD) has garnered research attention in recent years. Scholars seek to understand the teacher PD process, while practitioners are interested in deriving policies to facilitate teacher PD. The consensus emerging from the pool of literature is that teacher PD should be “individualized”: more focused on fostering teachers’ personal growth instead of enforcing “standard practices”. The Anglosphere has been leading in the domain of teacher PD, causing many regions to imitate its practices. Using documentary analysis, this paper reviews teacher PD policies in Hong Kong over the past forty years and compares them with practices typically adopted in the Anglosphere. The paper suggests that the PD policies of Hong Kong progressed from ‘solely teacher training’, to ‘emphasis on generic skills’, to ‘lifelong learning’. The concept of ‘Confucian Heritage Culture’ is used to explain the differences between the Angloshpere and Hong Kong in terms of PD practices. Implications for adapting teacher PD practices cross-culturally are discussed.

The relationship between conceptions of teaching and approaches to teaching was explored in a study of 18 secondary school art teachers in Hong Kong. Conceptions of teaching approaches were fitted to a four‐category model. Each of the categories was distinguished by reference to six relevant dimensions. As is the case in higher education, approaches to teaching lower forms, with little pressure from external examinations or school ethos, followed logically from conceptions of teaching. There was also evidence that contextual influences, if they were sufficiently strong, could play a part in teachers’ approaches to teaching in the lower forms. For senior forms, the most marked contextual influence on approaches to teaching came from the external examination syllabus. Of the 13 teachers who taught senior form students, eight reported using approaches to teaching that were significantly different from those they used for lower forms. The remaining four used essentially the same approach for junior and senior...

Research into teachers' conceptions of teaching can be justified in that deep seated beliefs impact upon the way teachers teach and influence the learning approaches of their students. This study examined conceptions of teaching art, through interviews with 18 secondary school art teachers in Hong Kong. The analysis resulted in a two-level characterisation of conceptions under broad essentialist and contextualist orientations. There were four subordinate conception categories, namely moral development in art and aesthetic development in art under the essentialist orientation, and intellectual development through art, and expression and therapy through art as sub-categories of the contextualist orientation. The categories were defined and delimited by six dimensions. The categories were seen as clearly distinguishable but related, though not hierarchically. There was no evidence of the category scheme being culturally specific, as the majority of the teachers held beliefs which were not consistent with the traditional manner of Chinese painting.

Recently, there has been considerable concern among art educators and cultural policy makers to promote art education in Hong Kong. The launch of the new curriculum of a discipline-based character in 1996 generated debate in the art education circle of Hong Kong. There were diverse opinions on the rationale for teaching art. Concern was expressed about the present constraints of art teaching related to teachers' ability and school administration poses another important issue that seems to inhibit further developments. This paper reports part of the findings of a study on art teachers' concepts of teaching. It explores the concepts of about 20 secondary art teachers in Hong Kong. Several categories of teaching are derived from interviews: aesthetic development, moral development, intellectual development, expression and therapy, and intellectual and aesthetic development. A scheme is developed which can be used to analyze teachers' concepts as education in or through art on a continuum from subject to learner centred.

A method for enhancing the quality of teaching and learning is through encouraging academics to engage in action research projects into some aspect of their teaching which is of interest or problematic for them. Action research is promoted as a means for committed teachers to bridge the gap between their theories and practice. However, groups of teachers, fresh to such ideas and methods, may need help to get their projects started and advice on how to proceed afterwards. ‘Critical friends’ are people recommended by Stenhouse (1975) to take up this pro-active role through the building and maintenance of a partner relationship with the academics throughout their projects. This article discusses the role of the critical friend performed by the co-ordinating team of the Action Learning Project in supporting educational action research projects in Hong Kong. Important facets of such a role include the: financier, project design consultant, rapport builder, coffee maker, mirror, teaching consultant, ev...