PurposeThe Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) is a quantitative instrument for collecting student feedback on programme quality that has been tested and practically used in Western university response‐contexts. The purpose of this paper is to adapt and partially validate a Chinese translation of the CEQ, for application in the new context of post‐secondary education in Hong Kong.Design/methodology/approachFrom a population of about 2,515 students in six institutions, 1,572 responses were obtained, representing a response rate of 62.5 percent. Given that a Chinese CEQ has never been tested in this new context, an exploratory approach was adopted by examining the psychometric properties of the CEQ constituent scales and their underlying factor structure as exhibited via item‐correlation analysis and exploratory factor analysis.FindingsThe alpha values of the CEQ scales in the present study are generally lower than those of the other reported studies. The results of exploratory factor analysis indicate that the degree of overlap among the constructs as measured by the CEQ scales is more extensive than most other reported studies, resulting in only four factors being explicitly indicated, with some constructs being overshadowed by other more salient constructs and failing to exhibit in the factor structure.Practical implicationsWhile broadly supporting the potential of CEQ‐type surveys in informing the quality endeavour, the findings of the present study (and those of some related tests on Chinese students that have recently been reported) suggest the need for further development of the CEQ for application in the Chinese context in general, and the context of Hong Kong post‐secondary education in particular.Originality/valueThe paper cross‐validates the CEQ in a new context.

The present study aims to analyse the complex relationships between the relevant constructs of students' demographic background, perceptions, learning patterns and (proxy measures of) learning outcomes in order to delineate the possible direct, indirect, or spurious effects among them. The analytical methodology is substantively framed against the studies of Richardson (British Journal of Educational Psychology 76: 867-893, 2006, Higher Education 54:385-416, 2007) that utilised a regression-based methodology to infer the possible causal relationships among the relevant learning constructs. A composite research instrument, written in Chinese and derived from the Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS) and the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ), was used to collect students' feedback on their perceptions of the learning environment and their learning patterns. Valid responses were obtained from 1,572 students studying at six institutions in the postsecondary education sector in Hong Kong, a new response-context for both the CEQ and the ILS. In adapting the research instruments to a new Chinese response-context, the findings are generally consistent with those reported in other published works (e.g. no relationship between students' demographic background and their satisfaction with the programme, and a significant relationship between students' exhibition of undirected learning patterns and low expected performance), but there are also some noteworthy discrepancies. The findings therefore buttress the confidence with which an ILS-based General Theoretical Model of student learning, adapted from Richardson (British Journal of Educational Psychology 76:867-893, 2006, Higher Education 54:385-416, 2007, may be used to conceptualise and interpret the dynamics of variation across different cultural response-contexts. While the CEQ provides some valuable complementary insights, it is an instrument that requires further development in the response-context of the present study.

A Chinese translation of the Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS), a quantitative instrument employed mainly in Western higher education contexts for collecting students' feedback on their learning patterns (in the form of students' processing strategies, regulation strategies, learning orientations and conceptions of learning), was adapted and validated for application in the new response-context of Hong Kong post-secondary education via a large student sample. The reliabilities of the adapted ILS scales, as reflected by Cronbach's coefficient alphas, were found to be generally satisfactory. From an exploratory factor analysis conducted on the adapted ILS scales, four factors were identified that resemble the relevant features of the factor structure reported in a study in an Indonesian response-context. Overall, the present study provides qualified support for the reliability and validity of the adapted ILS for application in the context of Hong Kong postsecondary education.

Purpose -The SERVPERF (for Service Performance) and the HEdPERF (for Higher Education Performance) are two questionnaires for collecting customer/student feedback on service quality that have been tested and used mainly in non-Chinese contexts. The purpose of this paper is to adapt and initially validate a Chinese translation of these two instruments for application in the context of post-secondary education in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach -Given that a Chinese translation of the two questionnaires concerned has not been tested in this new response-context, an exploratory approach was adopted by examining the psychometric properties of the SERVPERF scales and the HEdPERF scales via scale alpha, item-correlation analysis and exploratory factor analysis using valid responses collected from 271 students. Findings -The alpha values of both the SERVPERF scales and the HEdPERF scales are good or acceptable, with the latter better than the former in general. In the present study, the validity of employing the SERVPERF in the targeted response-context is supported as all the five SERVERF dimensions have been cleanly identified in the exploratory factor analysis. However, only three out of the five HEdPERF dimensions were identified in the present study, and two of the identified dimensions are complex concepts with each of them exhibited as two factors in the exploratory factor analysis, casting doubt on the appropriateness of the direct employment of the HEdPERF in the targeted response-context for the measurement of service quality.Research limitations/implications -The students who participated in the present study were pursuing Project Yi Jin, which was a special one-year post-secondary programme in Hong Kong. Originality/value -Taking both reliability and validity issues into consideration, this initial investigation indicates that the SERVPERF may be a more appropriate instrument than the HEdPERF for supporting quality assurance in the context of Hong Kong post-secondary education, especially when multiple questionnaires will be used for collecting students' feedback on their various experiences at different levels, where it is important for these questionnaires to be, as much as possible, simple and non-overlapping.

In conventional teaching there are three major goal structures: competitive learning, cooperative learning and individualistic learning.There has been much research into the effectiveness of these goal structures in conventional teaching. In regards to computer-aided learning, cooperative learning has been researched in game-based e-learning (GBEL), but competitive learning has mostly been overlooked. This research investigates the impact that competition has on the effectiveness of GBEL. The results of the experiment showed that when the e-learning game was played in a competitive context there was a lower learning improvement than if the game was played in a non-competitive, individualistic context.