HKU Bulletin January 2005 (Vol. 6 No. 2)

9 TV Helps, Tutors Hurt in Literacy T he key to helping children perform better in literacy tests may be the opposite of what parents and schools would like to hear: a bit of time in front of the television, preferably with a domestic helper nearby, and a lot less time doing exercises with private tutors. These were among the factors that produced higher scores in reading and literacy tests conducted by the University on 10-year- olds for the International Education Association (IEA) last year. The 4,300 students tested performed well when reading for information but were weak in literacy. This involves reading for deeper meaning and requires imagination, experience and creative thinking, according to Dr Tse Shek Kam, Associate Professor of the Facul ty of Educat ion who conducted the study with Lecturer Raymond Lam Yu Hong and Teaching Consultant Joseph Lam Wai Ip. “If you really want to have a knowledge economy, you have to enhance literacy,” he said. The study, The Current State of Chinese and English Reading Literacy at Primary Four in Hong Kong (2004) , was a follow-up to an IEA study conducted in 2001. Although there has been some improvement in the mean score, from 528 to 532, the gap between good and poor readers is getting wider, with poor readers declining. Economic reasons may have a role to play here. Students with domestic helpers scored 537 and those without scored 530 – figures Dr Tse said were statistically significant given the large size of the sample. Domestic helpers spent time watching television with children, chatting in English and teaching English, but their presence also helped students score better in Chinese. “They play an important role in language learning,” he said. Families that could afford to buy books also gave thei r chi ldren an advantage. In homes with 200 or more books, students scored a mean of 552, compared with 517 for those with fewer than 10 books – although Dr Tse cautioned that ‘real’ books, as opposed to exercise books, were what helped students. Parents also needed to provide pre-schoolers with books and read to them. “We know Chinese parents are concerned about education, but they put all the resources in the wrong area. They don’t give their time,” he s A ai n d o . ther poor investment is private tutors. Forty-three per cent of students said they had private tutors, but their mean score was only 525, compared to 539 for those without tutors. Only 12 per cent of students had tutors because of poor academic resul ts, and students mostly attended to finish homework and be given more assignments. “Most of these activities are not related to reading. It takes up their time, so there’s no time left to read,” he said. Unsurprisingly, students who read more and enjoyed reading scored better. But so did those who spent up to five hours a day watching television. Students who watched no television or watched more than five hours a day both scored 516. “Watching good programmes can help in literacy,” Dr Tse said. This was the first time both Chinese and English were tested – the 2001 tests involved Chinese only. Students scored much lower in English, with a mean of 458 compared to a mean of over 500 in English-speaking countries. This had implications for medium of instruction, he said. “Only eight per cent of our students reached 500 or more and would be able to study in those countries,” he said. “These are important figures because for the first time the government can know how good our students are compared with the rest of the world.” 8 RESEARCH Outstanding achievement on the part of the University’s researchers was recognized at the Award Presentation Ceremony for Excellence in Teaching and Research 2004, held on November 23, 2004. At the ceremony five University Teaching Fellowships were awarded and research awards were conferred on 12 outstanding researchers. An exceptional Special Research Achievement Award was made to the team in the Department of Microbiology which identified the novel coronavirus responsible for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Three colleagues recently appointed to membership of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering were also honoured. Speaking at this fifth annual ceremony, the Vice-Chancellor Professor Lap-Chee Tsui reminded his audience that outstanding achievement in both research and teaching lay at the heart of the University’s reputat T i h o e n. Vice-Chancellor pointed out that the Times Higher Education Supplement had recently rated the University as one of the top five universities in Asia and one of the top 50 universities in the world. He pledged that the University would continue to develop its focus on student-centred learning and whole-person development, and noted the success it had already achieved with its problem-based learning approach to teaching. On the research side, the University had identified eight broad multidisciplinary research areas and a number of specific research themes as the focus of its future development, and intended to increase the number of its research postgraduate students by 50% to just over 1,900 by 2008. Dr Alice Lam, Chairman of the University Grants Committee, who gave a concluding address at the ceremony, praised the University’s determination to excel in both teaching and research. She felt strongly that the vigilant pursuit of excellence must – and would – characterize all that the University did. She said that excellence in teaching constituted a basic fulfillment of the University’s contract with the students who represented the future of Hong Kong, and that excellence in research made a vital contribution to Hong Kong’s future economic development. Further information about the recipients of the research awards and their areas of research can be obtained from the website or e-mail address provided after each article. Excellence in Research, 2003-04