Volume 16, Issue 4

“Dreams”, “aspirations” and related constructs are traditionally regarded as facilitators of adolescent educational attainment in the Chinese context. Besides, there is an emergent need to widen the understanding of such constructs and their impact on children and adolescent developmental outcomes. This paper discusses the developmental outcomes of dreams, aspiration and related concepts based on a thorough review of the literature. Besides outlining the impacts of aspirations, dreams and related constructs on children and adolescents, features of related intervention programs, including themes of the intervention programs, program participants, methods of implementation and evaluation in both Western and Chinese contexts are also documented.

Hope, aspirations, and resilience are important developmental assets for children and adolescents. Based on the existing Western and Chinese literature, this review aims to identify instruments used to assess hope, aspirations, resilience, and conceptually related constructs as well as antecedents of the constructs in adolescents. A systematic literature search in the major databases was conducted. A total of 223 articles, with 144 being retrieved from international databases and 79 from China’s database, met the criteria and were included in the present review. Findings revealed that the majority of the existing scales were developed predominantly in the West and there were few validated Chinese hope and aspirations scales. Indigenous measures were also not identified in the literature. In terms of antecedent studies, predictors at different levels including the personal, family, school, and community were found. Implications on the development of hope-based interventions and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Although children and adolescents are often asked about their “dreams” about life, scientific studies of “dreams” and related constructs are grossly inadequate. This paper describes the findings arising from a review study exploring the concepts of dreams, aspirations and related constructs in children and adolescents. Besides an overview of the concept of dream, conceptual features and unique underpinnings of other concepts commonly related to dream, such as “aspirations”, “hope”, “future orientation” and “resilience” are presented in this paper. The research questions surrounding “dream” and related constructs in children and adolescents are presented and future research directions are discussed.

This study examined participants’ perceptions of a community-based positive youth development (PYD) program (the Project P.A.T.H.S.) based on the responses of 16,420 junior secondary students who joined the program in 2015. Subjective outcome evaluation approach was adopted to examine the students’ views of program content, program instructors, and program effectiveness. Consistent with previous studies, results showed that students generally perceived the program positively, and positive relationships were found amongst the three domains of evaluation. Multiple regression analyses showed that perceived program content and instructor qualities were significant predictors and could explain 35% of the variance in program effectiveness perceived by the participants. The present findings are basically consistent with previous subjective outcome evaluation findings derived from the school-based and community-based programs of the Project P.A.T.H.S. in Hong Kong.

Using a subjective outcome evaluation method, the current study investigated program implementers’ perceptions of the Tier 1 Program of the community-based P.A.T.H.S. Project in Hong Kong. After completion of the program, 599 program implementers completed a valid and reliable scale (i.e. Form B) to give their ratings on program content, their own performance, and perceived program effectiveness. As expected, most program implementers perceived the program in a favorable way by giving very positive ratings on the three aspects measured in Form B. Grade differences on the ratings were observed, with implementers teaching the senior curriculum held more positive views on program effectiveness than did those teaching the junior curriculum. Similar to previous findings, perceived program content and perceived worker performance predicted program effectiveness. Findings of the present study provide further evidence for the success of the Tier 1 Program of the community-based P.A.T.H.S. Project in Hong Kong.

The present study attempted to investigate the perceptions of Chinese secondary school students with greater psychosocial needs of the Tier 2 Program in the community-based phase of P.A.T.H.S. Project in Hong Kong (n=4245). Using a subjective outcome evaluation tool (Form C), the results revealed that a great majority of the students held positive attitudes toward the program, implementers and the effectiveness of the program. Also, the three domains of the program (“program quality”, “implementer quality” and “program effectiveness”) were significantly associated with each other. In line with previous findings, both program content and program implementer quality were significant predictors of program effectiveness. The current findings further reinforce the thesis that the community-based Tier 2 programs of the P.A.T.H.S. Project are effective in promoting the holistic development of adolescents with greater psychosocial needs in Hong Kong.

The present study adopted subjective outcome evaluation to examine program effectiveness from the views of implementers (N=375) who implemented the community-based Tier 2 Program of the Project P.A.T.H.S. in Hong Kong. The results revealed that most of the program implementers were satisfied with the program content, their own performance, and program benefits. In agreement with previous studies, the satisfaction ratings of both program content and implementer performance positively predicted perceived program benefits. Regarding the influences of different program delivery approaches, programs with the “interest-enhancement” (INT) element received a more positive evaluation from implementers than did the programs without that element. For programs with the “work-related” (WORK) element, parental involvement significantly raised implementers’ satisfaction ratings on their own performance. The current findings provided evidence for the effectiveness of the P.A.T.H.S. Tier 2 Program from the perspective of the implementers.

To better understand factors that influence individuals’ motivation to engage in physical activity, this study aimed to identify the motivational profiles among the Chinese university students, compare the motivational profiles between genders, and explore whether satisfaction of various psychological needs vary with different motivational profiles. Two thousand and twenty-two Chinese university students completed a battery of self-report questionnaires assessing motivation regulation and psychological needs satisfaction. Three motivational profiles were identified for both genders. The overall patterns of the motivational profiles for both genders were similar. However, males (44%) were more likely than their female counterparts (19%) in self-determined profile group. Students with self-determined motivation profile, compared to non self-determined motivation profile, had higher values on three types of needs satisfaction. Findings and implication of the study were discussed.

The current study aimed to test how gender and religion affect unintentional and intentional exposure to online pornography in Chinese adolescents. A total of 1401 secondary school students (age range from 11 to 16 years) participated in the study. Findings from multivariate analyses show that males reported higher levels of unintentional and intentional exposure to online pornography than females. Significant differences were found in adolescents’ religiosity, with students who had religious beliefs reporting a lower level of unintentional exposure to online pornography than their counterparts without religious beliefs. In terms of intentional exposure to online pornography, adolescents were more likely to be exposed if they were male and had religious beliefs. Such differences were not found in females. This study demonstrated the influence of demographic characteristics on exposure to online pornography among Chinese adolescents.

The purpose of the current study was to explore how positive youth development and family functioning were related to unintentional and intentional exposure to online pornography in Chinese adolescents. A total of 1401 secondary school students (mean age=12.43) participated in the study. Findings suggested that positive youth development and family functioning were associated with lower exposure to online pornography. In particular, higher levels of spirituality, social competence, mutuality and communication were associated with lower levels of both types of exposure to online pornography. Discussion focuses on the importance of promoting positive youth development and family functioning as protective factors against the negative influence of pornography among Chinese adolescents.

Adopting a qualitative methodology, views of the students on a subject on service leadership were examined. Students taking the subject (n=153) were invited to use descriptors and metaphors to describe their experiences about the subject. Regarding the descriptors given by the students, most of them were positive in nature. Similar positive findings were obtained for the metaphors. The findings are generally consistent with those studies using the same methodology reported in the literature. In conjunction with other evaluation findings, the present findings suggest that students had positive experiences about taking the subject and regarded the subject to be able to promote their service leadership qualities.

The General University Requirements (GUR) is a component of the new 4-year undergraduate program at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). This study examined students’ views and experiences of the GUR using a qualitative methodology. Written comments of 240 freshmen, sophomores, and senior-year students with reference to open-ended questions on their memorable experiences in the GUR study were collected. The qualitative findings suggested that students generally had positive views on the GUR in terms of its widely adopted active and experiential learning pedagogy, useful and attractive contents, caring teaching staff, and rich learning outcomes. Challenges were also identified for further improvement of the GUR.