Newsletter No. 126

No. 126 4th May 1998 3 CUHK Newsletter Figure 1 The guiding framework Process Principals' Instructional Leadership Academic and Disciplinary Orders Teachers' Instructional Leadership Teachers' Mode of Instruction Teachers' Work Culture Intake Academic Achievement Socio-economic Background Outcome Academic Achievement self-designed test, the students who had then been promoted to the next levels, i.e., Secondaries 2,3,5, and 7. The Hong Ko ng Ce r t i f i ca te of Educa t i on Examination results of the Secondary 5 students as well as the Advanced Level Examination results of the Secondary 7 students were also obtained to serve as indicators of educational outcomes. The Guiding Framework The researchers analysed the data collected using an intake-process- outcome model as their g u i d i ng f r amewo rk (Figure 1). Under the framework, students' academic success is the result of the combined influence of their socio-economic background and previous academic performance, as well as educational processes that take place within the school, i.e., principals' and teachers' i n s t r u c t i onal leadership, academic and d i s c i p l i na ry orders, teachers' mode of instruction and work culture. Utilitarian Attitude to Secondary School System The general public of Hong Kong holds quite an i ns t r umen t al and pragmatic view of their secondary school system, according to the findings of the survey on expectations. Academic success, especially language proficiency, is deemed the most important attribute. Other essential attributes include good work habits such as being responsible, independent, and obedient. The attributes considered less essential are social and political consciousness and computative and operative skills. Highly Segregated School System I n the l i ght of the o v e r r i d i ng importance given to academic success, the researchers narrowed their analysis to school effects on students' academic achievement. A t this point, it is worth noting one distinguishing characteristic of Hong Kong's secondary schools: they are highly segregated in terms of student ability and social class and hence, widely differentiated in their effectiveness in enhancing students' academic achievement. By app l y i ng Douglas W i l l ms' measure of segregation index (1986) on data from the second survey to calculate the ability segregation index of the 50 sample schools (Table 1), the research team found that, compared to the US, Canada, and Singapore, Hong Kong secondary schools are highly segregated in terms of students' academic ability. The survey also revealed significant class segregation among students, with the segregation index of the socio- economic backgrounds of Secondary 3 students at 0.31, compared to 0.25 for the US and 0.22 for Scotland, two countries w i t h schooling systems wh i ch are considered highly segregated in terms of the social class of their students. Effects (and Reverse Effects) of 'Banding' on Educational Processes To analyse the effects of educational processes on students' academic performance, the research team ran a number of hierarchical linear models on data collected in the third survey. Each model takes students' socio-economic background at both individual and school levels as antecedent variables, an aspect of educational processes as independent variable, and students' academic achievement in 1994 as dependent variables. The statistically significant effects of the educational processes are presented in Table 2. The findings indicate that while certain educational processes which are directly related to learning y i e ld a positive effect on academic performance, there are also many educational processes (including teachers' communicating i ns t r uc t i onal goals and p r o v i d i ng incentives for students) that exert a negative effect on academic achievement. This runs counter to the usual 'commonsensical' beliefs about learning. The reason the researchers put forward is that there is a self-perpetuating intake-process-outcome system at work within the Hong Kong secondary school system. If these findings are reexamined and hence, reinterpreted in the light of the distinguishing characteristics of the system, they may make more sense. The high segregation in students' academic ability and socio-economic backgrounds among secondary schools mean that student intakes w i t h in i n d i v i d u al schools are largely homogenous with respect to these two criteria. School authorities thus organize their educational processes in ways that best accommodate the particular 'band' of students assigned to them. Most of the educational process variables yielding negative parameters in Table 2 can be interpreted as the result of low-ability student intakes. Take teachers' instructional leadership as an example. Teachers working in classrooms with mostly low-ability students are more likely to spend time providing incentive to the students who are, by definition, not highly motivated. Hence, it is not the teachers' act of 'providing incentive for academic achievement' that have negative effects on the students' achievement, but the students' homogenous ly l ow ab i l i ty and motivation wh i ch cause teachers to provide incentive. Conclusion The study is important in showing that Hong Kong's secondary schools are not free and autonomous in deciding what educational processes to adopt, but are constrained by the quality of their largely homogenous student intake. Student quality has a determining effect on the schools' educational processes, which in turn have a significant impact on the students' academic outcome, wh i ch subsequently reinforces the schools' 'banding' and determines the quality of students assigned to them. Things are run in a self-perpetuating cycle of intake-process-output. Piera Chen Table 1 Ability segregation index of junior secondary schools in Hong Kong, US, Canada, and Singapore Hong Kong US Canada Singapore SegregationIndex*of: Form2 students Form3 students Junior-high students Junior-high students Junior-secondary students Composite achievement of English, Chinese, and mathematics 0.6586 0.5504 Reading 0.2678 0.0916 0.3308 Mathematics 0.0944 0.1797 0.2503 * Thevalueof thesegregation indextakeson valuesrangingfrom1 to 0. 1indicatestotalsegregation,while 0 indicatesnosegregationatall. Table 2 Summary of Significant Effects of Educational Processes on Students' Achievement Independent Variables Dependent Variables F.2toF.3 Sample FA toF.5 Sample Ach94F3 Ach94F5 HKCEE94 Antecedent Variables Students' socio-economic status (individual level) 0.032 0.030 — Students' socio-economic status (school level) 1.124 0.976 0.920 Educational-Process Variables Teachers' Instructional Leadership (perceived by students) Framing instructional goals — — -1.363 Communicating instructional goals -1.350 -1.655 — Supervision and evaluation instruction 2.261 — — Monitoring student progress - 0.943 1.332 Protecting instructional time -1,089 — — Maintaining high visibility 0.778 — — Providing incentives for academic achievement -1.235 -1.157 — Teachers' Instructional Leadership (self-reported) Communicating instructional goals -0.840 — — Protecting instructional time — — 0.587 Promoting students' learning initiatives — — 0.856 Providing incentives for students -0.796 -0.780 -1.042 Teachers' General Attitude Towards Work Disillusionment with teaching -0.565 -0.780 一 1 . 0 42 Sense of meaningfulness in teaching -0.453 - — Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Sense of incompetence in teaching - -0.370 — Teachers' Feeling of Stress in Work Psychological syndrome of stress 0.510 0.515 — Exhaustion and frustration — -0.622 — Principals' Instructional Leadership (perceived by teachers) Protecting instructional time 0.581 0.551 — Promoting Teachers' instructional improvement -0.970 -0.864 — Encouraging academic standard — — 0.436 Providing incentive for students' learning 0.429 — — Principals' Instructional Leadership (self-reported) Encouraging participation in decision making — — 0.226 Encouraging academic standard — 0.181 — Disciplinary Order Democratization of student organization 0.225 — —