Centre for Child and Family Science 兒童與家庭科學中心 Research Projects 研究計劃
Flagship Projects
- Phase 1: June 2016 – August 2022; Phase 2: January 2022 – August 2026
- PI: Professor CHUNG Kevin Kien Hoa
- Funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust
The “C-for-Chinese@JC” project is created and funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, and co-created by three local universities and two non-governmental organisations. Since its launch in 2016, the Project has adopted a “home-school-community” collaborative model to foster and create culturally responsive education for kindergartens, pleasurable and meaningful learning environment in improving the non-Chinese speaking (NCS) Ethnic Minorities (EM) students for Chinese proficiency and Chinese students for social competence. Building on past learnings, Phase II of the Project commending in 2022 bids to support kindergarten with a set of “Culturally Responsive Education Benchmarks”. This practical framework aims to enhance the Chinese learning and social-emotional competence of both NCS EM and Chinese students; as well as their transitions to primary education. By 2026, the Project targets to support 42,000 kindergarten students, including 5,100 NCS EM students and their families.
- Phase 1: October 2015 – December 2021; Phase 2: September 2022 – August 2025
- Co-PIs: Professor CHUNG Kevin Kien Hoa, Dr. LAM Chun Bun Ian
- Funded by the Simon K.Y. Lee Foundation
The 3Es project seeks to develop an evidence-based, tiered intervention curriculum that promotes the socioemotional competence of kindergarten children in Hong Kong. Expanding on both local and international research, the project has developed an award-winning assessment tool – the Chinese Inventory of Children’s Socioemotional Competence (CICSEC) – that can quickly evaluate children’s level of socioemotional competence. It has also developed a series of teaching and training materials that enhances children’s social and emotional skills. Importantly, it was also effective in reducing the behavioral problems and improving the academic achievement of children. Since 2021-2022, the 3Es Programme has been used by Education Bureau as an enrichment curriculum to promote the social-emotional competence of young children in Hong Kong.
The Education University of Hong Kong received further funding of HK$18 million from the Simon K.Y. Lee Foundation to launch a new three-year project in September 2022, entitled ‘Early Advancement in Resilience: A Downward Extension of the 3Es Programme that Promotes Children’s Social-emotional Competence’ (the EAR project). It focuses on the social-emotional development of two- to four-year-old students from socio-economically disadvantaged families. The project will develop a teacher-rated inventory that allows schools to measure nursery school and K1 children’s social-emotional abilities quickly and reliably, as well as a multi-faceted programme that promotes children’s social-emotional competence using games, play-based activities, and storybooks.
- January 2021 – December 2023
- PI: Professor CHUNG Kevin Kien Hoa
- Funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust
The Jockey Club project RISE aims to support junior primary school students with dyslexia to learn English. The project involves the development of a teacher needs assessment tool that allows teachers to understand students’ English language and literacy skills and an enrichment programme for Grade 2 and 3. These two programmes include phonemic awareness, phonics, orthography knowledge, vocabulary, reading fluency, sentence comprehension, and sentence writing, which are essential components for students to learn English. These knowledge and skills are integrated into a theme-based learning that moves gradually from letter level to text level to enhance students’ English literacy skills. Multi-sensory approaches are used to promote students’ motivation and English learning. Repeated reading strategies are used to enhance oral reading fluency and reading comprehension. On-site school support with lesson observations and collaborative lesson planning are provided to schools.
Projects
1. EASP: Early Advancement in Social-Emotional Health and Positivity
正思樂行：幼師與家長正向教育計劃
- Jan 2020 – Dec 2023
- Leader: Professor CHUNG Kevin Kien Hoa; Co-leaders: Dr. LAU Yi Hung Eva, Dr. CHAN King Chung Derwin
- Funded by the Faculty
The Faculty has approved a 3-year learning and teaching initiative to be based in CCFS. The project aims to develop an evidence-based teacher training programme, with mobile application and resource package, that incorporates both social emotional learning and positive educational practices. This project will not only promote teachers’ and parents’ wellbeing. Its theoretical basis can be further developed into a number of research and courses related to the role of family and school on the social-emotional development in children.
2. Longitudinal Study on Family Process and Child Development
- July 2018 – June 2022
- Co-PIs: Professor CHUNG Kevin Kien Hoa, Dr. LAM Chun Bun Ian
- Funded by the Faculty
The project examines the relationships among family structure, family process, and child development, so as to inform parents of effective parenting strategies and practices which are evidence-based and specifically related to the Chinese cultural context. The project team members work on different but related themes around child and family issues, in the format of coordinated data collection, processing and sharing. It is expected that progressively a data bank on child and family development will be set up for use by different research projects, and to help spur new projects.
3. Seed School Training Program in Promoting Free Play in Hong Kong Kindergartens
- Sep 2018 – Mar 2020
- PI: Dr. CHAN Po Lin Pauline
- Funded by Playright Children’s Play Association
This is an evaluation study of the Seed School Training Program (SSTP) run by the Playright. Contextual study, focus group interviews, etc. are used to understand the needs of participants, their knowledge and abilities of implementing free play. The results will be used for improvement in future training programmes.
4. Project Evaluation for入伍登陸．快閃動 of St. James’ Settlement
聖雅各福群會賽馬會「入伍登陸．快閃動」計劃成效評估研究
- July 2019 – Feb 2022
- PI: Dr. CHAN King Chung Derwin
- Funded by St. James’ Settlement
The evaluation will focus on Phase 1 of the project 入伍登陸．快閃動 operated by the St. James’ Settlement, and consist of four parts:
(a) Evaluation for 75 retired volunteers (aged 50-65),
(b) Evaluation for 210 elderly (aged 65 and above),
(c) Evaluation for public audience or participants who take part in the individual sections, and
(d) Evaluation on a reference group.
The evaluation will involve survey and physical assessment. The survey concerns about participants’ participation, satisfaction, and behavioural adherence to the program, and their physical and psychological well-being, and life satisfaction. The physical assessment will include evaluation of the participants’ cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength, flexibility, body composition, and functional ability. A scientific report about the effectiveness of the program will be produced.
5. Project Evaluation for Active School and Active Community Programme
香港精英運動員協會「賽馬會動感校園」及「賽馬會動感社區」計劃成效評估研究
- Aug 2019 – July 2022
- PI: Dr. CHAN King Chung Derwin
- Funded by Hong Kong Elite Athletes Association
The evaluation consists of two parts:
(1) Active School Programme – the evaluation will involve survey for approx. 3000 primary school students (aged 6-12), and interview with approx. 60 primary school students and 15 PE teachers/ coaches.
(2) Active Community Programme – the evaluation will involve survey for approx. 500 participants, and interviews with approx. 20 participants.
The evaluation concerns about participants’ participation, satisfaction, and behavioural adherence to the program, and their physical and psychological well-being, and life satisfaction. The project team will analyse the data collected and produce a scientific report about the effectiveness of the programmes.
6. Effectiveness of A Theory-Driven Smartphone Application on Orthopaedic Patients’ Motivation and Adherence to Medical Regimen in Hong Kong: A Randomised Controlled Trial
- Sep 2019 – Feb 2022
- PI: Dr. CHAN King Chung Derwin
- Funded by the Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF)
Healthcare professionals have difficulty in detecting and preventing medical non-adherence among outpatients. This study aims to address this problem by developing a smartphone application that helps healthcare professional, such as clinicians and physiotherapists, monitors and manipulates the motivational patterns and behavioural adherence of ACL patients’ post-surgery home-based rehabilitation. This innovative project integrates information technology into the field of health psychology and behavioural medicine. It paves the way for a larger scale cluster intervention study. The smartphone application may also be extended to other types of outpatients who require long-term home-based treatment or life-style modification.
7. Hong Kong Adolescents’ Well-being: An Ecological Perspective
- Oct 2019 to Sep 2022
- PI: Dr. LI Jianbin
- Funded by the FEHD International Research Exchange Grant
The primary aim of this two-wave project is to explore, both biological and psychosocial factors that shape Hong Kong adolescents’ well-being and the possible underlying mechanisms. It will recruit 600 Secondary 1 students, together with their parents, who will provide ratings on a range of well-being indicators and personal and ecological correlates twice, with one-year apart. Data will be analyzed with traditional regression models and machine learning approach. Practically, the findings will inform prevention and intervention programs as well as educational practices to promote Hong Kong adolescents’ positive development.
8. An implementation science approach to adapting healthy movement behaviour guidelines for Hong Kong preschool-aged children
- September 2020 – June 2022
- PI: Dr. CAPIO Catherine M; Co-I: Prof. CHUNG Kevin Kien Hoa, Dr. NG Sau Man Catalina
- Funded by the Health Medical Research Fund (HMRF)
This implementation science project will disseminate healthy movement guidelines (i.e., physical activity, sedentary behavior, sleep) in Hong Kong kindergartens. The requirements, facilitators, and barriers to effective uptake of the guidelines will be evaluated; the mechanisms through which implementation science benefits public health services in Hong Kong will be examined. Participants include stakeholders (educators, parents, government representatives) and children from local kindergartens. The findings of the project will contribute to enabling parents and teachers support healthy behaviours of young children.