Teachers' Perceptions of Project Learning in a Secondary School in Hong Kong

This dissertation, "Teachers' Perceptions of Project Learning in a Secondary School in Hong Kong" by Wing-yin, Han, 韓詠研, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract This study focuses on exploring teachers' perceptions of project learning in a secondary school in Hong Kong. It attempts to unveil how teachers perceive the meaning of project learning and how do they perceive and perform their roles as teacher mentors of the project learning programme in the sample school. In addition, this study aims at identifying the critical factors in affecting the implementation of project learning and investigating the unique patterns on how these factors are interrelated with each other in the sample school. This study has adopted a qualitative case study approach to explore an in-depth and comprehensive picture on how teachers perceive project learning from an insider perspective. According to the research design, preliminary data were collected through questionnaires to obtain an extensive and holistic view for the basis of the subsequent in-depth interviews. The interviews, participant observations and review of documents thus provided essential and rich information for this qualitative study. To ensure the trustworthiness of data, triangulation, researcher's self-reflexivity and the ethical issues were also taken into account when conducting the research. The findings of this study revealed the authentic perceptions of the teachers in relation to project learning in the sample school. The teachers generally held positive views towards project learning. However, a consensual understanding on the rationale and meaning of project learning was absent. Instead, fragmented understanding and diverging opinions did exist among teachers themselves. For the roles they perceived and performed, most of them understood their new roles iiibut they could not get rid of their traditional practices as they were over-dominated and over-emphasized on the product of project learning. In other words, there existed a gap between what the teachers perceived and how they performed. The study identified six critical factors in affecting the implementation of project learning from two different perspectives. In view of the characteristics of the programme, the need for implementation, the programme design and coordination were the crux for an effective implementation. From the perspective of school attributes, teachers' understanding and attitudes, teachers' training, students' abilities and attitudes as well as school culture were crucial in determining the level of achievement of the intended goals in the implementation. This study also illustrated how these factors were interrelated and interacted with each other from a holistic point of view. In conclusion, the implications and recommendations of this study were drawn to offer new insights to enrich the existing literature on project learning. On the whole, this study provides an authentic, in-depth and comprehensive understanding on teachers' perceptions of project learning which provides some useful references for those who are interested to have further studies in this area. iv DOI: 10.5353/th_b3763763 Subjects: Project method in teaching - China - Hong Kong - Case studies High school teachers - China - Hong Kong - Attitudes