Research
Our Research Stories
Recognizing the importance and significance of developing youth’s computational thinking skills and perspectives, the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust commissioned the Faculty of Education of HKU, Youth Global Network, and the Department of Applied Social Science of PolyU to develop and implement “The Coding for Community Project”. The Project consists of a student-oriented coding curriculum and a community action component that is informed by the socio-cognitive theory of learning. The study will investigate the effect of the Project in cultivation of youth’s computational thinking skills and perspectives, and the effectiveness of computational participation with a community-based approach for increasing Hong Kong secondary students’ psychosocial attributes (e.g. general self-efficacy, grit, sense of community, resilience, innovativeness, youth social responsibility, etc.). The result can be relevant in exploring effective ways in creating an equitable CS curriculum for underprivileged youths in Hong Kong.
The Project engages secondary school teachers with interactive and creative coding education and development of mobile applications, which could equip students with computational thinking skills. Therefore, the Project also aims to represent an assessment of Hong Kong secondary school teachers’ pedagogical perspectives of computational thinking curriculum in secondary education and technological know-how, and various external factors that influence teachers’ education perspectives and strategies, especially within a specific social context of education (e.g. class suspension during the COVID-19 epidemic).
The uniqueness of the Project as compared with other coding/programming programmes lies in the recruitment of community adult partners to facilitate secondary students’ programming learning. Of primary concern is that students have limited opportunities to leverage their knowledge to real-life situations and mentors can provide the psychosocial aspects of mentoring that may contribute to students’ extra motivation in learning and psychosocial development. To test this assumption, the Project will also investigate the effect of adult mentors’ recognition, perception and attitudes toward programming and computational thinking, and their personally special characteristics and abilities to students’ development in the Project.
Since Wing’s (2006) definition of computational thinking were proposed, different definitions with a variety of notion, scope, and elements of computational thinking have been developed and discussed by the contemporary academia. The Project aims to develop a theoretical framework by referencing source literature, taking into consideration the current criticisms and contemporary research on the fundamental elements of computational thinking.
The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically affected the education practice worldwide, leading to school closures and learning from home. Under such specific social context of education, the Project aims to investigate students’ daily lives and response to the school closures, to identify the protective factors from the surrounding environment that can eliminate the negative effects or risky behavior brought about by such unfavorable educational setting.
Our Research Stories
C4C Project Cohort Study
Recognizing the importance and significance of developing youth’s computational thinking skills and perspectives, the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust commissioned the Faculty of Education of HKU, Youth Global Network, and the Department of Applied Social Science of PolyU to develop and implement “The Coding for Community Project”. The Project consists of a student-oriented coding curriculum and a community action component that is informed by the socio-cognitive theory of learning. The study will investigate the effect of the Project in cultivation of youth’s computational thinking skills and perspectives, and the effectiveness of computational participation with a community-based approach for increasing Hong Kong secondary students’ psychosocial attributes (e.g. general self-efficacy, grit, sense of community, resilience, innovativeness, youth social responsibility, etc.). The result can be relevant in exploring effective ways in creating an equitable CS curriculum for underprivileged youths in Hong Kong.
CT Education Perspective among Teachers
The Project engages secondary school teachers with interactive and creative coding education and development of mobile applications, which could equip students with computational thinking skills. Therefore, the Project also aims to represent an assessment of Hong Kong secondary school teachers’ pedagogical perspectives of computational thinking curriculum in secondary education and technological know-how, and various external factors that influence teachers’ education perspectives and strategies, especially within a specific social context of education (e.g. class suspension during the COVID-19 epidemic).
Mentoring Studies
The uniqueness of the Project as compared with other coding/programming programmes lies in the recruitment of community adult partners to facilitate secondary students’ programming learning. Of primary concern is that students have limited opportunities to leverage their knowledge to real-life situations and mentors can provide the psychosocial aspects of mentoring that may contribute to students’ extra motivation in learning and psychosocial development. To test this assumption, the Project will also investigate the effect of adult mentors’ recognition, perception and attitudes toward programming and computational thinking, and their personally special characteristics and abilities to students’ development in the Project.
Theoretical framework of Computational Thinking
Since Wing’s (2006) definition of computational thinking were proposed, different definitions with a variety of notion, scope, and elements of computational thinking have been developed and discussed by the contemporary academia. The Project aims to develop a theoretical framework by referencing source literature, taking into consideration the current criticisms and contemporary research on the fundamental elements of computational thinking.
Education in the Time of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically affected the education practice worldwide, leading to school closures and learning from home. Under such specific social context of education, the Project aims to investigate students’ daily lives and response to the school closures, to identify the protective factors from the surrounding environment that can eliminate the negative effects or risky behavior brought about by such unfavorable educational setting.
Publications
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