Learning experience of the first cohort under the reform of undergraduate education in Hong Kong

Abstract

Hong Kong has undertaken a curriculum reform shifting towards broad-based curriculum, well-rounded education, student-focused learning and outcome-based approach to student learning, and transformed from a three-year British university system to the four-year American university system. With a nuanced look at the impact of the curriculum reform, the present study examined learning experience of the first four-year undergraduate cohort under the curriculum reform in a Hong Kong university. A longitudinal pretest and posttest design was adopted to track individual students in the same cohort who took a Student Learning Experience Questionnaire (SLEQ) twice, once when they were in their freshman year and again in their senior year. SLEQ, as an assessment tool, is designed to measure students’ perceptions of learning environment and learning outcomes in higher education, and has been demonstrated sound reliability and validity evidence. An item response theory scoring approach was employed to capture students’ self-reported learning gains, and this approach was found to offer greater ability to capture learning outcomes gains over the conventional summative scoring method (Zhao, Huen & Chan, 2016). Furthermore, the first four-year cohort under the curriculum reform was compared to their counterparts, the last cohort of the previous three-year undergraduate curriculum, in terms of their learning experience. Similarities and differences of learning experiences between the two groups were investigated. The findings facilitate the understanding of student learning and offer evidence-based insights for enhancing student learning and refining the four-year curriculum under the curriculum reform.