The adaptation, validation and application of a research instrument for investigating the relationships between students' perceptions of the learning context and students' learning patterns in post-secondary education of Hong Kong

Abstract

This thesis is about quality in post-secondary education, with its main theme being the adaptation, validation and application of a quantitative instrument for investigating student learning. While different conceptions of educational quality have been proposed and various approaches to addressing the quality issues have been practiced, it is argued that to cope with the education reform and the expansion of post-secondary education in Hong Kong, the concept of quality as transformation should assume a more central role, and more attention should be paid to the student experience in general, and student learning in particular. Forming the basis for the empirical investigation of this thesis is the selection and adaptation of two instruments developed and validated in western higher education contexts, namely the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) and the Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS). These instruments are applied in the local response context of post-secondary education in Hong Kong. The platform of study comprised six member schools of the Caritas Community and Higher Education Service (CCHES), from which student feedback was collected on a wide range of personological and contextual observables for the validation of a composite research instrument adapted from the CEQ and the ILS, and for the initial exploration of systematic relationships among the relevant observables. Findings are that, although cultural effects manifested in their adaptation for post-secondary education in Hong Kong, the CEQ and the ILS, with further revision of some scales, should be able to serve as a basis for the design of an instrument for effective collection of students’ perceptions of their learning environment and students' learning patterns in this new response context. Apart from some phenomena that need further investigation, the initial exploration of systematic relationships among the relevant observables found many results similar to those reported in other published work, in particular the central role assumed by regulation strategies among the ILS components.