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Tutorial Service: a Commodity or a Comfort Blanket?
LAM Kai Ming, Peter
(20428002)
This major paper is presented in partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of Education,
at The Graduate School of Education, the University of Western Australia
2010
Peter Lam 1
The University of Western Australia Graduate School of Education
Master of Education EDUC 8621 Major Paper in Education
LAM Kai Ming, Peter (20428002)
March 19, 2010
Tutorial Service: a Commodity or a Comfort Blanket?
Abstract
This research examined the commercial based education service providers in Hong Kong,
specifically the criteria why students would opt for mass-scale tutoring classes offered by
these providers and their underlying reasons. Furthermore, it attempts to reveal the
students perceived values on joining these tutoring classes and the contribution towards,
if any, their achievements in public examinations.
Sixteen students (mainly Secondary 5 or Grade 11) were invited to share their opinions
on tutoring in the format of unstructured focus groups providing insightful scenarios to
understand how tutorial had contributed to their studies. Relevent literature were also
reviewed to depict the current situation of tutorial usage in Hong Kong.
EDUC 8621 Major Paper in Education Tutorial Service: a Commodity or a Comfort Blanket?
Peter Lam 2
Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction Current Situation ..................................................................................................................... 5
Research Questions .......................................................................................................................................11
Conceptual Framework ................................................................................................................................ 13
Literature Review ......................................................................................................................................... 15
Research Design and Methods ..................................................................................................................... 21
Strategy and Design ............................................................................................................................ 21
Access to Data..................................................................................................................................... 21
Sampling Strategy ............................................................................................................................... 21
Data Collection ................................................................................................................................... 22
Implementation Review ................................................................................................................................ 23
General Description of all Focus Groups ............................................................................................ 23
General Observation of Focus Group A .............................................................................................. 23
General Observation of Focus Group B .............................................................................................. 24
General Observation of Focus Group C .............................................................................................. 24
Guiding Questions .............................................................................................................................. 25
Data Analysis ................................................................................................................................................ 26
Question 1. In your understanding, what is tutorial service? What should a tutor do? ....................... 26
Question 2. Have you ever use any tutorial service? .......................................................................... 28
Question 3. How different is tutorial service from lecture / classroom learning in regular school? ... 30
Question 4. Is there any a curriculum in tutorial service? How does it compare to that of your school?
............................................................................................................................................................ 33
Question 5. Could you share your experience with any tutorial school that you have attended or now
attending? ............................................................................................................................................ 34
Question 6. Do you choose your tutorial service yourself? If you do, what are your criteria? ........... 36
Question 7. What is your expectation from the tutorial service? What do you want out of the tutorial
service? ............................................................................................................................................... 39
Question 8 and 9. Do you get what you want? Does your academic result get better? ....................... 40
Question 10. Is there any influence out of the tutorial service? The tutors? The students in the tutorial
classes? ................................................................................................................................................ 43
Question 11. What is your preferred learning style? ........................................................................... 45
Question 12. What is the relationship among homework, public examination and tutorial school? ... 49
Question 13. Why cannot a regular school do the same as a tutorial school? ..................................... 51
Limitation ..................................................................................................................................................... 55
Findings ........................................................................................................................................................ 57
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................... 66
Acknowledgement ........................................................................................................................................ 68
EDUC 8621 Major Paper in Education Tutorial Service: a Commodity or a Comfort Blanket?
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Appendix 1. Transcript of Focus Group Session A (n = 6) ........................................................................... 73
Appendix 2. Transcript of Focus Group Session B (n = 4) ..........................................................................110
Appendix 3. Transcript of Focus Group Session C (n = 6) ......................................................................... 141
Appendix 4. Time Table (Actual) ............................................................................................................... 172
Appendix 5. Sample Invitation Letter ........................................................................................................ 173
Appendix 6. Axial Coding .......................................................................................................................... 174
Appendix 7. Selective Coding and Memo .................................................................................................. 181
List of Tables
Table 1. Characteristics of tutorial schools in Hong Kong and comparison to shingaku juku in Japan.
(Partial adaptation from Roesgaard 2006:34). ................................................................................................ 8
Table 2. Major tutorial schools cited by interviewees Total number of branches and seats (EDB 2009b). 10
Table 3. Guiding questions. Items marked with * are the descriptive indicators suggested by Kwok (2004b).
.......................................................................................................................................................................11
Table 4. Six Descriptive Indicators (Kwok 2004b). ..................................................................................... 12
Table 5. Sampling Demographics. ................................................................................................................ 22
Table 6. Demographics of participants. ........................................................................................................ 23
Table 7. Comparing and Contrasting Tutorial and Regular School Classes. ................................................ 33
Table 8. Intrinsic and extrinsic variables that impact students from learning. .............................................. 45
Table 9. Contingency of Tutorial. ................................................................................................................. 64
Table 10.Timeline and major milestones. ................................................................................................... 172
Table 11. Level 1 Coding In your understanding, what is tutorial service? What should a tutor do? ...... 174
Table 12. Level 1 Coding Have you ever use any tutorial service? ......................................................... 175
Table 13. Level 1 Coding How different is tutorial service from lecture / classroom learning in regular
school? ........................................................................................................................................................ 175
Table 14. Level 1 Coding Is there any a curriculum in tutorial service? How does it compare to that of
your school? ............................................................................................................................................... 175
Table 15. Level 1 Coding Could you share your experience with any tutorial school that you have
attended or now attending? ......................................................................................................................... 176
Table 16. Level 1 Coding Do you choose your tutorial service yourself? If you do, what are your criteria?
.................................................................................................................................................................... 177
Table 17. Level 1 Coding What is your expectation from the tutorial service? What do you want out of
the tutorial service? ..................................................................................................................................... 177
Table 18. Level 1 Coding Do you get what you want? Does your academic result get better? ............... 178
Table 19. Level 1 Coding Is there any influence out of the tutorial service? The tutors? The students in the
tutorial classes? ........................................................................................................................................... 178
Table 20. Level 1 Coding What is your preferred learning style? ........................................................... 178
Table 21. Level 1 Coding What is the relationship among homework, public examination and tutorial
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school? ........................................................................................................................................................ 179
Table 22. Level 1 Coding Why cannot a regular school do the same as a tutorial school? ..................... 180
Table 23. Level 3 Coding Cramming Tutorial School in Hong Kong. .................................................... 182
Table 24. Level 3 Coding Cramming Tutorial School Tutor in Hong Kong. ........................................... 182
Table 25. Level 3 Coding Students. ......................................................................................................... 183
Table 26. Level 3 Coding Curriculum. .................................................................................................... 184
Table 27. Level 3 Coding Assessment ..................................................................................................... 184
Table 28. Level 3 Coding Passive Learning Style. .................................................................................. 185
Table 29. Level 3 Coding Insufficiency ................................................................................................... 186
Table 30. Level 3 Coding Contingency ................................................................................................... 187
List of Figures
Figure 1. Links among core codes. ............................................................................................................... 58
Figure 2. Links between perceived insufficiency, goal and achievement. .................................................... 63
Figure 3. Links between the tendency to use tutorial and perception to tutorial. ......................................... 64
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Introduction Current Situation
Tutorial service has a diverse definition. In universities, tutors are both teaching and
researching staff offering personal guidance and support to small groups of students
(Wisker et al 2008: 12). Tutors can also be teaching assistant handling clerical tasks like
taking the register or distributing letters to parents, or help delivering in part or wholly
the curriculum on personal, social, health or citizenship programmes (Startup 2003: 2).
Tutors can also be responsible in providing pastoral care and personal, educational and
vocational guidance (Marland & Rogers 2004). Whilst such quasi councillor coach style
may be more commonplace in universities in Britain or the US, tutoring is more generally
accepted as cramming in Hong Kong among senior secondary students (Secondary 4 or
10th
graders and above) in preparing their public examinations, in particular the Hong
Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE)1. Large-class cramming style
tutorial will be the sole topic in the rest of this paper.
Seemingly the term tutorial centre has been over-generalised to refer any education
institution outside regular schools. Locally, this umbrella term refers not only to cram
schools, but also other operations that offer academic subject support and assistance,
homework assistance, remedial study programmes, plus other personal or social skills
training which focus on primary and junior secondary students. Perhaps partially
obscured by the Education Ordinance which forbids any school workshop with 20 pupils
or more to operate without the approval of the Permanent Secretary of the Education
1 The Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination is the public examination for all Secondary 5
(Grade 11) school graduates. A grade C or above in most of the HKCEE subjects is recognised as
equivalent to an O-level pass (grade C or better) in an overseas GCE examination. (HKEAA 2009). It
consists of some 40 subjects including English language, Chinese language, Mathematics, various science,
art, commerce and practical subjects. The examination results are widely accepted in Hong Kong as
admission criteria to advance study or work qualification. A grade E is often the basic level of achievement
for employment purposes.
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Bureau (local education authority)2, tutorial centres are legally regarded as private
schools offering non-formal curriculum, and therefore their operations have a lot of
similarities as a public funded or subsidised schools. For instance, its location should not
be in industrial sites, classrooms should be architecturally safe and commensurate with
both fire and hygienic requirements. Licences are granted to qualified and approved
premises. There are also clear statements on the personal requirements and academic
qualifications of the teachers. Even though it is less stringent regarding the need for
formal pedagogy training, teachers in these private schools have to process, at a
minimum, five passes in the HKCEE including both English and Chinese languages.
They must also be granted a permit to teach.
With such arrangements muddying the difference between tutorial centres and private
schools, it is not surprising that local people combine the two terms as tutorial school
and often refer the terms tutorial centres and tutorial schools interchangeably. The
students interviewed in this study too often had treated the terms tutors and teachers
as synonyms, although in many cases, they actually intended to distinguish the roles
between instructors at tutorial centres versus at their regular schools.
Yet a more careful examination of the differences of role, focus, operation and teaching
material of these tutorial schools revealed some traits similar to Roesgaards observation
(2006). Roesgaard, in her study of Japanese jukus (cramming schools), identified five
styles in her juku topology, namely, remedial, drill, remedial and special teaching, free
school offering remedial and special teaching, and lastly examination preparation
2 No more than 20 pupils may be taught in a school workshop at the same time by any one teacher without
the approval of the Permanent Secretary. (Education Ordinance Chapter 279A Education Regulation,
Regulation 28.)
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(shingaku juku). While arguably some of the jukus may serve dual roles being supervised
classrooms and qusai-daycare centres for working parents, she considered the raison
dtre of examination preparation style shingaku juku was based on the strongly
hierarchical secondary and higher education system.
Roesgaard commented shingaku jukus thrived apparently due to an unequal access to
education.
whereas the Japanese Constitution ensures the right of the people to receive education in
accordance with their abilities, the fact that schools do not regularly offer remedial teaching
has made room a system in which one has to buy the necessary supplementary education.
Since buying extra tutoring requires financial means to a certain degree, it follows that not
all families can buy an equal level of such teaching.
There is a close resemblance between the examination preparation tutorial schools in
Hong Kong and the shingaku jukus in Japan. Based on the topological criteria of
Roesgaard (2006), the characteristics of local tutorial schools are shown in Table 1.
Japanese shingaku juku Hong Kong Tutorial School (cramming style)
Hong Kong Tutorial School (regular courses)
Atmosphere Competitive, stimulating Nervous Relaxing
Focus on course Entrance examinations (sometimes on particular institutions)
HKCEE and HKALE HKCEE and HKALE
Relation to school None None None
Students High performers High performers All levels
Teaching materials Own texts Own texts Own texts
Size >200 students, some franchise 20 to 30 students per class, depending on classroom capacity. Multiple classrooms from 2 to 20. Pre-recorded video lectures may be played concurrently in multiple locations. Tutorial schools run in chain. No franchise.
Admission Entrance examination or test Some classes have entrance examination or test. Otherwise first-come-first-serve
First-come-first-serve
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Advertising Commercial (rate of successful applicants to university)
Commercial (rate of successful applicants to university)
Commercial (various themes: celebrity tutors, quality of lecture notes, lively atmosphere)
Yearly cost 300,000 to 700,000 yen (HK$25,400 to $59,250) a year.
HK$3,360 to $4,800 a year (per subject)
Table 1. Characteristics of tutorial schools in Hong Kong and comparison to shingaku juku in Japan. (Partial adaptation from
Roesgaard 2006:34).
Competition to prestigious institutions starts at very early stage. It is not uncommon to
see long queues applying for admission to prestigious kindergartens and primary schools
in Hong Kong every school year. For accessing higher education, the total number of
places offered by the UGC-funded universities3 is far from accommodating all secondary
school graduates. As at 2008, a little more than 18% of the teenage population aged 17-20
was able to further advance their studies at local universities (UGC 2008). Considering
there were near 110,000 HKCEE candidates (at Grade 11) in 2006 with approximately
30% who might proceed to Secondary 6 and 7 (Grade 12 and 13) to sit the HKALE, the
relatively low percentages indicated students must compete for limited university places
in order to excel in this 21st century information age.
4
Cost does not impose any significant streaming of clientele of the local tutorial schools.
While the relatively high cost in Japanese shingaku juku may forbid financial challenged
students from attending, the tuition fee for Hong Kong tutorial schools are fairly
affordable. A Japanese politician criticised the hefty tuition fee of the jukus has created an
income-base unequal opportunity in accessing supplementary education (Roesgaard
2006). He called for the Japanese government to grant scholarship to bright students from
3 Hong Kong has 12 degree-awarding higher education institutions, eight of which are funded by the
public through the University Grants Committee. The other four are the publicly-funded or self-financed.
There are 12 more colleges and institutes that offer courses up to certificate, diploma or
associate degree level. (HKSAR 2007:151) 4
There were 21,197 full-time and 1,216 part-time first year equivalent students in take for all eight
universities funded by the University Grant Committee in the academic year 2008. (UGC 2008) Presuming
all students took the HKCEE two years ealier, there were 122,078 candidates in 2006 (HKEAA 2009). The
resulted admission percentage was 18.4%
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low-income families in order to allow them attending free lessons of the jukus. In the
case of Hong Kong, however, the Education Bureau offers grants to local schools for
employing additional resources for conducting school-based support schemes like
language remedial or initiation programmes (EDB 2001, 2009d). Some schools even used
this fund to hold HKCEE preparation courses for all its Secondary 5 students
(LLCMHLAU 2009, BKKSS 2009, POCHIU 2008).
Small-scale tutorial centres first appeared in Hong Kong during the 1950s and 60s, whilst
the first large-scale tutorial centre, which was part of the St. Louis School, opened in
1972 (RTHK 2007). Revealed in a 1992 survey on local secondary school students
(n=549), some 22% of respondents acknowledged they had received tutorial services
(CUHK 1993). More recent surveys on senior secondary students revealed this
proportion had surged significantly (28.0%-48.1% HKCSD 2005a, 45.4%-66.8%
(n=4500) PISA 2006, 55% DPHK 2007 (n=5780), 56.7% HKFYG 2009 (n=500) and
70% Sing Tao 2005a). For those students having tutorial, the majority opted for tutorial
schools (60.2% DPHK 2007, 61.1% HKFYG 2009).
Expenditure on private tuition also climbed significantly. Government statistics reported
household expense on tuition on average was $1,150 (US$147) per month during
2004/05 which was a 15% increase from 1999/2000 period (HKCSD 2005b). The
aggregated monthly expenditure for all students attending tutorial was estimated at $0.3
billion (US$38.5 million) in 2006 (Apple Daily 2006).
This phenomenon can be reflected by the tutorial schools prevalently found around the
city. Comparing to 601 primary schools and 527 secondary schools that are run or
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subsidised by public funding (EDB 2009a) plus near 200 more privately run schools,
there are over 5000 registered tutorial schools in town5. These tutorial schools vary in
size accommodating from 20 to about 300 students, with some extremes over 1000
students.
Narrowing down to those cramming style tutorial schools, the four major chains have 58
branches together with an approved capacity of 13,684 seats (Table 2)6. One of the
leading chains claimed it had 14,801 students enrolled to its English courses as at April
2006 in all branches (Apple Daily 2009a). Roughly, this is equivalent to 370 classes in a
regular school or student volume of 13 secondary schools together. As English language
is one of the core subjects in the HKCEE, this leading tutorial school may have covered
12.4% of the overall 119,000 HKCEE candidates in 2009 (Apple Daily 2009b). Based on
the capacity, the projected sales of these four chains for English courses can be as high as
48,400 students or more than 40% of all HKCEE candidates.
Major Tutorial Schools Total Number of Branches
Total Approved Capacity (Seats)
Modern Education Centre 16 4,505
Kings Glory Education Centre 17 4,187
Beacon College 14 3,898
Ever Learning Education Centre 11 1,094
Total 58 13,684
Table 2. Major tutorial schools cited by interviewees Total number of branches and seats (EDB 2009b).
5 According to Education Bureau school information search in February 2009, there are 5171 private
schools registered. Until 2004, separate day and evening school registrations were required for schools
running at the same premises even though they were owned by the same person or organization. New
schools require only a whole-day registration since then. Furthermore, schools with less than 20 students
daily or those which offer non-academic subjects are exempted from registration. Taking this into
consideration, the actual number of private schools is estimated in the 2500 to 3000 range. 6 Multiple school linceses (am, pm, evening, whole day) running at the same premises (same school
building code assigned by EDB) are counted as one branch. Classrooms grouped under a unique school
building code are counted as separate branches unless they are in close proximity. Regular schools at
separate locations run by the same owner offering tutorial courses are also counted..
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Research Questions
There are three specific research questions:
To what extent do Secondary 4/5 students (HKCEE candidates) attend tutorial
school? (in terms of hours, expenditure, subject enrolled, nature of tutoring
class personal, non-profit making mass class, commercial mass class)
What factors influence these candidates to attend tutorial school? (Tutorial
School factors, Personal / Family / Peer factors like SES, willingness to further
study, or others?)
What are, in any, their perceived values on joining any tutorial classes?
These three specific research questions are further elaborated into a number of guiding
questions for conducting focus groups (Table 3).
No. Guiding Question Descriptive
Indicator
1. In your understanding, what is tutorial service? What should a tutor do?
2. Have you ever use any tutorial service? Accessibility
Connectivity
Affordability
3. How different is tutorial service from lecture / classroom learning in regular school? Interactivity
4. Is there any a curriculum in tutorial service? How does it compare to that of your school?
5. Could you share your experience with any tutorial school that you have attended or now
attending?
6. Do you choose your tutorial service yourself? If you do, what are your criteria?
7. What is your expectation from the tutorial service? What do you want out of the tutorial
service?
Insufficiency
Perceived Values
8. Do you get what you want? Perceived Values
9. Does your academic result get better? Interactivity
Sustainability
10. Is there any influence out of the tutorial service? The tutors? The students in the tutorial
classes?
Insufficiency
11. What is your preferred learning style?
12. What is the relationship among homework, public examination and tutorial school?
13. Why cannot a regular school do the same as a tutorial school?
Table 3. Guiding questions. Items marked with * are the descriptive indicators suggested by Kwok (2004b).
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Some of the guiding questions stemmed from six descriptive indicators devised by Kwok
(2004b) through his extensive grounded field studies comparing the tutorial schools in
five Asian cities. (Table 4)
Descriptive
Indicators
Details
Accessibility refers to tutees levels of ease in consuming mass tutoring services
Affordability concerns tutees or their parents ability to pay for tutoring fees
Connectivity is related to the chained marketing business, or a network of franchised
large-scale tutorial schools, in one particular city or within and across
cities, counties, provinces of one particular country
Insufficiency is directly correlated with unavailability of free academic guidance from
daytime schooling or elder family members
Interactivity depicts didactic interactions between tutees and tutors in tutorial lessons
Sustainability Involves the persistence or usefulness of tutorial services, supporting
tutees learning needs during or beyond tutorial lessons, facilitated by information and communication technologies (ICT).
Table 4. Six Descriptive Indicators (Kwok 2004b).
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Conceptual Framework
Grounded Theory Analysis was used in this research. It aims directly at generating
abstracted theory to explain what is central in the data. (Punch 2005: 204) By following
Miles and Huberman framework for qualitative data analysis (1994 cited Punch
2005:198), we first collected data via unstructured discussion groups, then displayed the
data with transcript of the conversation, with multiple iterations of coding and abstraction
to reduce the data, in an attempt to derive a conclusion out of the original data eventually.
Paraphrased in Punchs words (2005: 205), our target was to discover a grounded theory
by finding a core category at a high level of abstraction but grounded in the data.
Referring to Appendix 1, 2 and 3, open coding was done to the full transcript of the three
discussion groups conducted. These substantive codes, as the outcome of the first-order
abstraction or data reduction, portrayed initial concepts that emerged from the raw data
(the transcripts). They could be groupings of reoccurring synonyms, definitions of cited
examples, or simply some empirical tags that represented any key ideas reflected from
the raw data.
Through a second iteration of data reduction, the substantive codes were compared
against each other to derive at a set of second-order abstracted codes through an axial
coding process. The first-order substantive codes originated from the thirteen guiding
questions were analysed openly across the board in an attempt to identify any
interconnections amongst them. Examples of interconnections can be causes and
consequences, seeing things as different aspects of a common category, seeing things as
parts or stages of a process, a stimulus-response association, and so forth (Punch 2005:
210). The resulted theoretical codes in this research can be found in Appendix 6.
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As a third stage, another iteration of abstraction was applied to further reduce the
theoretical codes into core codes. This was the selective coding process, by which, a
certain aspect on the theoretical codes was purposely put in central focus in an attempt to
formulate the grounded theory finally. It was aimed at developing the abstract,
condensed, integrated and grounded picture of the data referred (Punch 2005: 212).
Apart from coding, memoing was also used to provide a narrative explanation of the core
codes identified. The core codes and detail memos in this research can be found in
Appendix 7.
By no means was the Grounded Theory Analysis a once off process. Multiple iterations
of analysis were done, with adequate sampling until the final core codes were
saturated enough to have an encompassing and comprehensive concepts to explain our
research questions. Furthermore, a neutral stance was maintained throughout the entire
coding process, avoiding a sensitivity taking for granted that some interconnections
among the codes must exist without seeing other possibilities (Punch 2005: 214).
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Literature Review
Educators have long recognised the existence of tutorial services and its impact towards
the formal education systems. Tutorial, often private in nature, is regarded as a shadow
education system (Bray, 2007, Rosegaard, 2006). Kwok (2004a) defined private
supplementary tutoring as a kind of extra, fee-paying academic teaching or drilling for
full-time students studying in regular school instruction programmes or syllabuses at all
levels of educations. Essentially it has three distinct characteristics:
Academic oriented
Monetary transfer (from tutees or their parents/ guardians to tutors)
Tutoring content or mastery of some cognitive skills being in line with tutees
day-time schooling
The notion of a shadow education system is its omnipresence yet non-institutionalised
nature. The mainstream education system in Hong Kong is mostly government subsidised
and monitored by the Education Bureau. While the Bureau administers the licensing of
tutorial schools, it does not take an active part dealing with these schools operating
directions. In a reply to a legislator (EDB 2009e), the Bureau stated that:
Tutorial schools mainly provide an option for academic subject teaching service outside
formal schooling. Parents and students should cautiously consider whether it is necessary to
enrol into tutorial schools, in the light of whole person development.
As an option to formal schooling, it becomes entirely the students and their parents to
decide whether they want to pay extra for academic service they deem necessary,
notwithstanding other options available.
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The underlying motives why students would opt for tutorial service vary, yet it is biased
to have a binary argumentation to classify the motives as goal seeking and failure
avoidance behaviours. In the same reply abovementioned (EDB 2009e), EDB noticed at
least five reasons prevailed:
Cultural factor is one reason, Chinese families usually attach much importance
to academic results;
some students wish to have better preparation before examinations or strive to
excel;
some parents cannot provide sufficient homework guidance;
some are under peer influence, and
some others even aim to make more friends through attending tutorial schools.
Cramming tutorial schools fulfil all these needs. In particular, its focus on public
examinations could be the sole reason why these schools exist and have flourished.
Although this research did not investigate the pros and cons of public examinations, we
have to bear in mind that a heavily examination focus regular schooling hinders social
constructionist approaches in building our industrial and commercial systems, and
wield our society together (Buckard & Okeffe, cited Cooper 2005: xvii). A pure
homeschooling or self-study approach to deal with examinations may inevitably develop
a group of civically disable adults (Reich 2005: 111). Not surprisingly, the official
statement from EDB also stated that (EDB 2009e):
students receive essential education at formal schools, where they have balanced
developments in the domains of ethics, intellect, physical development, social skills and
aesthetics.
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However, do all students receive an equal opportunity in formal schooling having a
balanced development? Are teachers able to deal with the students academic strengths
and weaknesses? What about academic guidance and support after school?
Farrell (1997: 475) defined four educational equalities. Unquestionably, equal are all
students in Hong Kong who enjoy a 9-year free mandatory schooling. Various modes of
subsidised schools enable a literacy rate at 94.6% (UNDP 2009: 175). Yet unequal are the
students personal encounters with their school teachers and family members. Everybody
has a varying degree of academic support, no matter due to family SES or the availability
of other resources. Thus there is no guarantee that all students are able to achieve the
same and live the same in the future base on an unequal footing.
Equality of access refers the probabilities of being admitted into school.
Equality of survival refers to the probabilities of staying in school to some
defined level.
Equality of output refers to the probabilities of learning the same thing at the
same level.
Equality of outcome refers to the probabilities of living similar lives as a result
of schooling
Lasley and Matczynski (cited Tomlinson 1999: 61) asserted that teachers who play to
students strengths and mitigate student weaknesses were likely to be successful.
Varieties in instructional models would maximise students achievements. Chen (2007:
67) found that perceived academic support was indirectly related to academic
achievement through perceived academic engagement. Such support, which can be in the
form of emotional (encouragement), instrumental (homework assistance) or cognitive
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(value of education success), coming from the students peers, teachers and parents do
not translate directly into achievement in school grades, but rather, collectively act as an
encouragement enticing the students to demonstrate a higher level of academic
engagement including behavioural (conduct), attitudinal (attitudes towards schooling)
and instrumental (participation) processes which would ultimately allowing students
having a better academic achievement.
Our argument is, given the prevalent number of tutorial schools in town, they should
share partially some contribution to nurturing students in academic advancements. The
taught contents, purposely in line with the tutees regular schooling, would ultimately
contribute to the final assessment results. Would it be more effective if regular schools
take the lead to deliver tutorial as well? Should we leave the discretion entirely to
students and parents in honouring a pluralistic free choice of service, including
education?
Considering Taylors findings on low to middle class African Americans on their
perceived barriers of homeschooling (2005) may give us some hints why low SES would
forbid students to patronise tutorial schools: 1. Parental lack of teacher qualification or
low educational attainment; 2. Challenging family condition (single-parenting for
example) and 3. Perceived expenses of homeschooling. Consequently, we further argue,
provided that schooling is part of life for all children and teenagers, all students should
receive equal opportunities to excel and have the four educational equalities realised.
Besides, provided that tutorial service can fulfil the varying learning preferences, the
notion that tutorial is a commercially available commodity would deprive whoever finds
it unaffordable. All students should also have equal rights to access tutorial services
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regardless of their family SES.
There may be no simple and straightforward answer to these questions. We shall examine
these issues in the rest of this paper. However, in order to fully understand the preferences
of students, we must digress to examine the significance of textbooks to the students.
This topic kept appearing in all discussion groups and it seemed partially influence the
decisions of the students opting in or out tutorial services.
Nozaki et al (2005:5) did an extensive study on textbooks, pedagogies, education and
schools in the Asia-Pacific region. Textbooks, they realised, were prevalent in the region
and survived in both pre- and post-colonial eras as the principal form of education
technology. They were grounded in particular narratives, languages and codes, and
canons and values despite vigorous ideology changes and government changes in the
modern history of this region. Nozaki et al referred textbooks as the centre highlighting
that readers would make sense of what was the curriculum out of the pedagogical texts.
Another scholar Fu (2009: 1) pointed out that textbooks were vehicles of pedagogical
texts distilled from a particular culture under certain values and beliefs. The quintessential
subset of contents may directly, professionally and fundamentally expedite the academic
development of students. Tomlinson (1999: 16) described a traditional classroom as a
place where whole-class instruction dominated. The teacher directed student behaviours
and fairly likely there was a single interpretation of ideas and events. She also pointed out
that a single text might prevail in a traditional classroom, and the coverage of the text
(and thus the curriculum) drove instructions with a focus on mastering facts and skills out
of context.
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Peter Lam 20
With these notions in mind, it is natural, if not unawaring, for students to accept
textbooks as doctrines defining some authoritative curricula. The discussion groups
revealed students took different approaches in studies. More inquisitive minds demanded
for details from textbooks, while the examination focused students thought the concise
notes from tutorial lectures would suffice their self-study. All students, however,
considered contents in textbooks provided them the boundary of preparing their HKCEE.
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Research Design and Methods
Strategy and Design
The focus group aimed to identify the various values or interest areas perceived by
students who chose or did not choose to attend tutorial school. A facilitator (researcher)
conducted the various focus groups, encouraged the participants to share their views
towards the tutorial schools based on a set of unstructured guiding questions (Table 3).
Access to Data
In order to solicit a broad spectrum of inputs from the research participants, samples were
purposeful, targeting various cohorts of candidates taking the HKCEE (13 of the 16
students interviewed were to sit the HKCEE 2010). Diverse samples were solicited to
cover the demographic variables depicted in Table 2. Samples included students who
were enrolled in tutorial classes at the time of the discussion, those who did not and those
who opted for private tutorial or other formats.
Sampling Strategy
Participants were invited from the current students of the researcher. Through this initial
group, subsequent participants were indirectly invited.
The collected data from each round of focus group were tracked and then compared to
the previous rounds. More focus groups were invited until the collected data became
apparently saturated. The final sample size was 16 participants (3 focus groups of 4-6
people each), which was manageable by a single facilitator.
As the sample size was relatively small, additional measures were taken to enhance the
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quality of data in terms of reliability, validity and reactivity (Punch 2005: 252). Any
perceived abnormalities identified during the focus group were followed up with a
separate interview of the individuals involved.
No. Variables Domain
1 Gender Male, Female
2 Family Socio-economic
background
Disadvantaged, average, well-off
3 School background Banding of students intake, HKCEE pass rate of previous graduates,
university admission rate of previous graduates
4 HKCEE subject enrolled English Language, Chinese Language, Mathematics, Science subjects,
Arts subjects, Commerce subjects, others
5 Tutorial School enrolled? Currently enrolled into a commercial tutorial school?
6 HKCEE repeaters? Any previous attempts in sitting the HKCEE?
7 Current Academic Standing Current school achievements (as reflected in report cards from school)
Table 5. Sampling Demographics.
Data Collection
Personal invitations were sent to the participants by phone or email, and appointments
confirmed in similar manner. All focus groups were conducted in Cantonese (the local
spoken Chinese dialect). The venues were conveniently located for all participants in a
private premise in a relaxed setting after school hours. The atmosphere was amiable
enough for the participants to feel comfortable and express their views with others.
All discussions were voice recorded electronically supplemented by handwritten notes.
The transcribed dialogue in Chinese was first presented to the participants for verification
and then translated to English for coding and analysis.
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Implementation Review
General Description of all Focus Groups
The focus groups were organised in a semi-structured format. A summary biographical
data of the 16 participants is shown in Table 6.
Session Participant Gender Grade SES Currently Attending Tutorial
Monthly Tutorial Spending (HK$)
Remarks
A A1 A2
A3
A4
A5
A6
F
F
F
F
F
F
S5
S5
S5
S5
S5
S5
Avg
Avg
Avg
Avg
High
Avg
Personal
No
No
Personal
Large-class + personal
No
$3820
--
--
$2000
$3500
--
B B1 B2
B3
B4
M
M
M
F
Adult
Adult
S5
Adult
Avg
Avg
Avg
Avg
N/A
N/A
No
N/A
--
--
--
--
Studied in Canada
Did not sit the HKCEE, Project Yijin graduate
C C1 C2
C3
C4
C5
C6
M
F
F
F
M
F
S5
S5
S5
S5
S5
S5
N/A
Avg
Avg
Avg
Avg
Avg
Large-class
Personal
No
Large-class
No
No
$2500
$2000
--
N/A
--
--
Key: S5 = Secondary 5, SES = Socio-economic status (Monthly Gross Family Income: Low: < $20,000, Mid: $20,000 to $40,000, High: > $40,000)
Table 6. Demographics of participants.
General Observation of Focus Group A
The first group (n = 6) consisted of classmates from the same government school (public
school) which uses English as the instruction medium. These girls were attending the first
semester of their Secondary 5 (Grade 11) when interviewed. Their school has got more
than 100 years of history and is generally considered by the public to be at the forefront
in academic standing. The promising HKCEE results of the 2009 graduates were well
above the overall average. The percentages of credits and distinctions ranged from 2 to 4
folds higher than the city-wide figures.7 For the six participants, four were studying in
the Art stream, two were in the Science stream.
7 2009 HKCEE Candidates of School A who achieved grade C or above with city-wide averages: English
Language 88.9% vs. 21.1%, Chinese Language 50.5% vs. 19.1%, Mathematics 72.2% vs. 30.3%,
Economics 57.3% vs. 24.1%, Physics 84.3% vs. 31.2%, Chemistry 95.2% vs. 32.9%, Biology 90.4% vs.
33.7%. (source: website of School A)
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The one-hour discussion was conducted during weekdays after school. The conversation
was fruitful as the participants were fairly open to share their views on and experience
with tutorial services. A formal invitation was presented to them three weeks before the
discussion through one of the participants who was a student of the researcher.
General Observation of Focus Group B
For the second group (n = 4), the participants were from a fellowship of young people
belonging to the same church. Apart from one who was a Secondary 5 student, the rest
were all working adults in their early 20s. One studied overseas since Primary 4 and thus
his input was confined to those hypothetically scenarios mentioned in the guiding
questions. There was a girl who completed her Secondary 5 through the Yijin Project.
This is an alternate path for local students to graduate secondary schooling without sitting
the HKCEE. Apparently she was a low-achiever. Her comments, although a bit vague and
incomplete, were significant refutation against comments made by many other
participants.
The 70-minute discussion was conducted on a Saturday afternoon in a common room of
their church. All interviewees received an invitation indirectly through a mutual friend of
the researcher. Before the discussion, the participants were not acquainted with the
researcher and did not know too detail on the purpose of the research, thus leading to
some confusion on having suitable participants for this relatively small discussion group.
Nonetheless, the conversation was decent and candid.
General Observation of Focus Group C
For the third group (n = 6), the participants were friends from the same secondary school.
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Affiliated with a local university, the history of this school can be traced all the way back
1888. The secondary school section established after WWII and relocated to the current
premises in 1999. It is a Chinese medium instruction school with fair overall past
HKCEE results8. There were two students each studying the Science, Arts and Commerce
streams respectively. Four of them were girls and two were boys.
The 80-minute discussion group was held at a fast food restaurant in late afternoon. All
students were invited indirectly through one girl who was the researchers personal
student. The purpose of the interview was debriefed at the beginning of the discussion.
Perhaps the students were exhausted after day-long competition in their sport meet on the
day of discussion, thereby slowed down the conversation a bit without much interaction.
Guiding Questions
Thirteen prompt questions (shown in Table 3) were asked during the focus group
discussion. Phrased in plain language easily comprehensible by the teenage participants,
these prompts acted as a guide to elicit responses towards the key areas under research
and also set the boundary for the discussion. In general, these questions were asked in the
sequence shown, albeit the exact wordings used might slightly differ in the various
discussion sessions.
8 Translated from the school management report (name withhold) In the 2009 public examinations,
HKALE and HKCEE, our students achieved better than 2008. In particular, the results in HKALE were
remarkable. Pass rate of ten subjects was above average of all candidates. Eight subjects had a better pass
rate than last year. The proportion of students who attained the minimum requirement for applying local
universities raised around 15%. In HKCEE, overall results were better than 2008. In particular pass rate
substanstially improved in the main subjects (Chinese languge, English languge and Mathematics). All
above the overall average in Hong Kong. Science subjects were all above average. Science and Commerce
subjects were satisfactory, while Arts subjects were slightly poor.
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Data Analysis
In general, the responses collected from the interviewees were detail enough to probe into
their underlying themes. While transcribing the conversation, whenever there was
obvious omission of the actual person, organisation, or objects throughout all
third-personal references, the appropriate subjects were filled in accordingly. Furthermore,
slangs and colloquial expressions were translated into plain language in order to keep an
objective tune for open coding.
First level codes were summarised into axial code for each of the guiding questions in
Table 3. Whenever appropriate, related literature was cited to support the observation on
the participants in an attempt to explain any abnormalities that might surface. Details on
axial coding can be found in Appendix 6. Axial Coding.
Question 1. In your understanding, what is tutorial service? What should a tutor do?
The question attempted to solicit from the students their overall definition of tutorial.
Although it might not be conclusive to develop a detail taxonomy of the various style and
operation characteristics of tutorial services in Hong Kong, the first person experience of
the students provided a clear description of what tutorial service was like.
There was more than one style of tutorial schools. For primary school children, tutorial
centres offered dual roles as a supervised commercial study room and day-care centre.
However, for our students who were most Secondary 5, tutorial centres were cramming
schools that focused on the two public examinations HKCEE and HKALE. These exit
assessments for Secondary 5 and 7 students (11th
and 13th
Graders) were critical for study
advancement or career applications.
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Public examination was the keyword that kept occurring in all discussions. Among
others, Clarifying contents learnt, examination skills, revision and notes were
also common. Although there was no intention to drill into the root cause why students
patronised tutorial service and any implications towards the potential pitfalls of the local
education system, it was evidential among all participants that HKCEE had a
monumental significance to their patronage of tutorial service.
This was contrary to the sort of tutoring in many universities where a pre-assigned tutor
would take care unresolved academic difficulties of the students. Universities tutors act
as facilitators or knowledge resources who students can approach and seek for advices at
a scheduled tutorial class or appointment. Personal tutoring in Hong Kong conforms to
this arrangement.
Money transfer was a crucial factor in the participants minds. All partcipants denied
peer-support and study groups as tutorial. At best, they referred to that as assignment
clarification or homework assistance. Likewise, they also disregarded extra lessons at
regular school (no matter it was a detention lesson or remedial class) to be tutorial lessons.
There was a clear demarcation between free and paid activities. Tutorial classes were
always commercial in nature in their minds. Since commercial operations abide to market
driven rules, they may diverge from regular schools which often have a higher nobility in
its vision and mission in nurturing the younger generation.
Furthermore, many students considered tutorial being supplementary to regular schooling.
It was an activity where additional time was spent on academic study led by a tutor. The
credential and background of the tutor greatly varies. Even though the terms tutor and
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teacher were often convoluted throughout the group discussions as apparently the
Chinese equivalent , literally meaning a senior master, might have masked the
distinction between the roles of a tutor and teacher, subtle differences between the two
roles were revealed towards the end of the discussion. A student pinpointed that teachers
at regular schools were liable to teach. Therefore even if they were using a tutorial style
to teach, that lesson might only be considered as an extra lesson but never as a
tutorial class. Again, this is perhaps due to the Chinese equivalent of tutorial or
often has an academic context that strictly refers to remedial practice or drilling. A
teacher was expected to assume multiple roles varying from a personal coach, counsellor,
facilitator, instructor on both academic and non-academic subjects.
The student mix within a tutorial class greatly varied. As large-scale tutorial schools were
open to the public, students of all academic background might attend the same tutorial
class. As subsidised secondary schools in Hong Kong followed a city-wide enrolment
system which students were allotted according to their academic ability and parents
choices, variation could be less diverse. There was a noticeable dissimilarity in opinions
from students of different regular schools.
These observations concurred with Kwoks (2004a) definition of private supplementary
tutoring which referred to a kind of extra, fee-paying academic teaching or drilling for
full-time students studying in regular school instruction programmes or syllabuses at all
levels of education.
Question 2. Have you ever use any tutorial service?
When asking the students whether they had ever patronised any tutorial school, the
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answer was a near unanimous yes. Virtually all participants had participated in a tutorial
of various sorts at least at one point of their studies. Be it during their primary or
secondary school years, they had patronised from once to seven times per week or 1.5
hour to 7 hours in total on up to seven subjects.
Students who opted for tutorial service each spent approximately $400 to $3500 (US$51
to $449) per month. Tuition fees ranged from $80 to $350 (US$10 to $45) per hour. As
tuition fee of the local public funded and subsidised schools is minimal, a fee comparison
between the tutorial service and day-time schooling becomes difficult. Although there
were little details gathered on the students family household income from the responses,
all parents were willing to provide financial support to the students on their tutorial
expenses. We may therefore consider tutorial service as an affordable commodity.
However, it is necessary to highlight that the worth of tutorial needs not to be reflected
solely by the absolute dollar amount spent. Tutorial being a paid service significantly
shadowed the students in their discussion.
Tutorial may be delivered in the format of personal, small-group (5 or less students) to
large-classes (20-30 students). There was an unconfirmed report from a participant about
tutorial class in the form of live mass lectures with over 100 students. The tutees might or
might not know the tutors before enrolment. Tutors of personal or small-group tutorial
class were often indirectly associated with the participants through trustworthy
individuals with high creditability, for instance, parents, relatives, school teachers or
church friends. Whilst for tutors of large-classes tutorial, apparently advertisement had a
role enticing student enrolment. For all discussion groups, the partcipants were able to
name examples of large-class tutorial centres which, and some prominent tutors who had
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various degrees of above-the-line advertising.
Question 3. How different is tutorial service from lecture / classroom learning in
regular school?
Participants contributed a lot to this question and shared their experiences on
large-classes tutorial. They pinpointed a sharp contrast in the mode of lecture,
depth-and-breath of contents, and classroom conduct. The role of textbooks in classes
was also mentioned.
Group A students described a typical lesson in their regular school as a daily rush of
knowledge delivery. Instructions were one-way. Teachers were readers of some sort of
teaching materials (regardless it was a textbook, teacher notes or materials from other
third parties). While elaborating the contents, their teachers might have overstretched the
topics interlacing with a lot of fillers or have digressed, which in turn demotivated the
students from paying attention. Large-classes tutorial, on the other hand, instructions
were still one-way. Yet the lectures were more focused and concise as lesson time was
mostly confined to one hour per week. The large-scale tutorial centres were distinctive in
their use of pre-recorded video lectures. Highlights from live lectures were edited into a
video series which then played subsequently in multiple video classes usually without
the tutor on premise. Teaching assistants were available yet their roles often diminished
to clerical classroom administration without providing further instructions.
There was a clear difference on the conciseness on lesson delivery. Strictly bounded by
the HKCEE syllabus, tutorial classes only touched on the main points and key areas.
Another key feature was their emphasis on the so-called examination skills referred by
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Peter Lam 31
the participants. Tutors would go through HKCEE past questions one by one and
discussed the key steps to resolve them and highlight the keywords necessary for scoring.
Regular school focused on knowledge delivery Group A students used this term
interchangeable with the Chinese term which literally meant reading books to
describe the one-way delivery of instructions.
Lacking the flexibility to intervene and address the weaknesses of each student
individually, large-classes tutors tended to ignore this issue completely on the contrary to
personal tutors. Hotlines were set up instead by some tutorial centres for students to call
in after class and discuss their unresolved learning issues. Such calls were often not
answered by the tutors but a team of teaching assistants. Web based forums were also
available for students to post their enquires. Through this high division of labour, it both
avoided disruption of questions from students and alleviated the non-academic workload
of the tutors.
Large-scale tutorial centres had multiple branches, which could be found in easily
accessible locations (e.g., malls, commercial buildings) each having from 3 to over 20
classrooms accommodating up to 1100 students. Many of them had a capacity of about
200 students. The physical size was much smaller than a regular school, with only limited
amenities apart from having classrooms, a small reception area and staff room.
Student behaviours described by Group A and B largely differed, indicating the two
cohorts of students might originate from different clienteles. Group A reported classroom
discipline was loose in tutorial classes. There was no delinquent acts disturbing the class,
but students often failed paying their attention and defaulted to personal entertainment
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like video gaming, text messaging, small chatting, eating or dozing. Although Group A
students admitted such disorganisation might be found in regular school classes as well,
they claimed it was infrequent due to their respect to teachers.
Contrary to this, Group B responded that the classroom atmosphere was intense. Most
students paid attention as reflected by their busy note-jotting, question-and-answering
with the tutor. Hardly any exceptions were found dozing.
In the eyes of the participants, both tutorial school and regular school employed
instructor-based teaching. However, teaching was more diversified at regular schools,
perhaps, partially due to the facilities and length of school time. Distinctive was the
celebrity style packaging of tutors in major tutorial schools. Did such gimmick entice
students to revisit topics they found incomprehensible in regular schools? Participants
had polarised opinions on this issue. While on one hand, some agonised that the teachers
in their regular schools were incompetent and had failed to listen or understand their
needs and therefore sought for an alternative who could; others played down the
importance of having just a pretty-looking face in exchange of a more reputable tutor
with better credentials who might deliver knowledge and coach better.
The role of textbook shadowed the discussion. Textbooks formed the skeleton and core of
teaching materials in regular schools. No matter how vaguely the teachers followed
textbooks, the contents were doctrinal towards the students. Apart from personal tutorial,
teaching materials in a tutorial class, in some students minds, should not be based on
textbooks at all. There was a tendency that home-grown materials were used exclusively
in large-classes tutorial schools. Some even used professionally designed and printed
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tutorial notes as a selling point.
After class academic support was also different. Large-class tutorial schools offered
discussion boards on the Internet. Due to most lectures were video classes, students had
to resort to such online service to post their academic issues and wait for a response.
Regular school teachers, in the students minds, were supposed to provide face-to-face
support, albeit some students had complained that their teachers were often unavailable
or failed to support them. Other observations are described in Table 7.
Tutorial School Regular School
Curriculum Bounded by HKCEE syllabus. Students
consider the curriculum is less in-depth
than regular schools.
Bounded by HKCEE syllabus.
Students perceive the examination
boundary through textbooks.
Instruction Styles Precise and concise Diversified
Instructors Tutors must have the relevant academic
qualification, plus satisfying other
personal requirements as specified in the
Education Ordinance.
Both live lectures and pre-recorded video
lectures
Teaching assistance in the pre-recorded
video lectures may not be a qualified tutor
School teachers must have formal
pedagogy training and relevant
academic qualification, plus
satisfying other personal
requirements as specified in the
Education Ordinance.
Live lectures
Duration per class 0.5 to 2 hours, once per week 6 hours, 5 days per week
Focus examination skills knowledge delivery
Teaching Materials For large-class tutorial schools, lectures
notes are used exclusively.
For personal tutorial, textbooks and other
teaching materials are used discretionally
Textbooks are widely used as the
core teaching / learning resource,
supplemented by teachers notes, past examinations papers, and
worksheets
Table 7. Comparing and Contrasting Tutorial and Regular School Classes.
Question 4. Is there any a curriculum in tutorial service? How does it compare to that
of your school?
All public funded and subsidised schools follow the same curriculum as stipulated by the
Education Bureau. In particular for Secondary 4 and 5 students, the curriculum is strictly
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confined to the HKCEE syllabus. The Hong Kong Examination and Assessment
Authority, the organiser and assessor of the HKCEE, publishes and makes known the
syllabus. Despite this fact, many participants thought that the topics covered by the
tutorial centres were fewer than what they received from regular schools, and therefore
the perceived curriculum was smaller in tutorial centres.
Confining our discussion to cramming style tutorial school, the so-called curriculum
perceived by the participants were the marketing collateral or advertisements where the
course outline was stipulated and publicised. Major large-scale tutorial schools lessons,
reported by the participants, were not as flexible as smaller scale independent tutorial
schools, needless to say private tutorial.
Whilst for regular schools, teachers choice of teaching materials and assortment of
textbooks, worksheets and notes gave the impression of what the curriculum was.
Textbooks, in particular, seemed to have a very significant role amongst all participants.
In general, the participants apparently confused the notions of the breadth of coverage of
all topics versus the depth of details of a given topic inside the same curriculum. What
they agreed unanimously was that tutorial courses tended to be more precise and concise
on HKCEE, and examination skills must be presented throughout.
Question 5. Could you share your experience with any tutorial school that you have
attended or now attending?
Respondents described their personal experiences with large-class tutorial with keywords
like toils, repetition, one-way, crowded. We interpreted that after day long
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Peter Lam 35
schooling, it was likely for students having less interest to repeat another lecture in a
crowded classroom. A respondent described a typical tutorial class as:
First, before getting into [the classroom], you must have to line up. Since my experience on
a very popular class was like that. Then there will be a long line-up outside. As that tutorial
centre (classroom) usually could not accommodate that many people, the line up would
extend all the way downstairs (Appendix 2, Paragraph 62)
Highly popular tutors, often packaged like celebrities (dress style, make-up, advertising,
etc.) indeed attracted some students when they had no previous idea of the tutors
credentials. The so-called celebrity effect might only short-live after the students had
sat in a trial lesson or two. Once they realised whether the course would befit their needs
or not, the students might quit.
Actually, those god-tutors, I think some girls go there to take a look of their pretty faces.
(Appendix 2, Paragraph 64)
At time, it was difficult to enroll to classes of these popular tutors. Some students had to
commute to other branches of the tutorial school to have a remedial tutorial class. Others
would opt for the more trendy video class sitting in a class watching a pre-recorded
video of those popular tutors where there was zero interaction instead of live class. To
some students, it was like listening to a lecture repeating some academic topics already
covered at their respective regular schools.
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Those Teaching Assistants are really just assistants. The whole class has only the television.
Whenever something has to be distributed, [they] would distribute. And actually, rarely
anybody would ask the Teaching Assistants Besides [you] are unable to enroll. [You] have
to be real early, and line-up somewhere, then you have to be there the right time, and only the
first-comers may enroll the live classes. (Appendix 2, Paragraph 66).
Mentioned earlier, classroom discipline was very loose. While it was unclear why some of
the students were lowly motivated (Group A reported some students went asleep at tutorial
classes), bearing in mind that the students were not liable to any disciplinary consequences
on truancy to a paid educational service, we might still consider their sole attendance as an
indirect proof showing their needs of the tutorial. In another occasion, Group C described
how peer influences had an impact towards motivation. Some of them attended tutorial
together with their regular school classmates. However, sitting in a different premise with a
mix of unfamiliar students, they would spend less time chit-chatting and stayed focus on
the pre-recorded video lecture.
Question 6. Do you choose your tutorial service yourself? If you do, what are your
criteria?
Despite not all participants having patronised tutorial service at the time when the focus
group took place, they had and had-not both admitted that they made their own decisions.
Being teenagers (15-17 years of age at the time of attending tutorial), all participants had
complete autonomy in deciding if they needed tutorial service, in what form, at when and
how often. This was contrary to their parents making all decisions when they were
slightly younger. For those participants who opted for tutorial services, their criteria to
select an appropriate tutor or class were often based on advertisements, and to a lesser
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Peter Lam 37
extent, word-of-month referrals from peers, parents or other family members who might
had patronise similar tutorial service before. In some cases in Group C, students took a
trial-and-error approach and resulted a purely arbitrary decision on the chosen tutorial
course.
Massive advertising was a significant but not decisive criterion. The participants played
down the charm, charisma and captivating characters of those celebrities-like super star
tutors or affectionately known as god-tutor () or goddess-tutor ()
colloquially. The credentials of these tutors were considered important, yet, none of the
participants would positively check them. They presumed whoever being employed by
tutorial centres were supposed to be academic competent to deliver classes. Moreover,
knowledgeable tutors could be ones just mastered a certain subject area, as long as they
could show off and impress the tutees.
A1: Owning to the feeling he gave me, plus whenever he was talking about Maths
A2: Like speaking some secret codes.
A1: He was fast too. After [I had] done something, I could not load [another topic in mind
fast]. Perhaps due to I am not a science student; I do not have a brain like him.
A2: Certainly, he was so old.
A1: Yes. When he starts loading (teaching), I am already at my peak [of comprehension].
R: That is, that [tutor] was so excited whenever he teaches, so you feel, [that had indicated]
[he was] powerful through [how he acts].
(Appendix 1, Paragraph 19)
The tuition fees involved were not a major decision criterion for members of all groups.
Aspiration for a better academic achievement, the participants argued that their parents
would not turn down their requests on paying their tutorial expenses. This rejected a
notion that expensive tuition fees would discourage patronage, or perhaps, it showed the
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Peter Lam 38
tutorial courses were affordable to this group of students coming from middle-class
families.
Yet, Group A was more concerned about prioritising their schedules and using their study
time more efficiently. A clear course outline and schedule available on the web page
directly influenced all students decisions. Group A discretionally chose only those
courses that fit their schedule, plus subject areas they had difficulties. This answer was
unsurprising as the group complained HKCEE preparation had chipped away their leisure
and rest time. Commuting was another criterion. However, it could be conceived as
another issue fighting for the limited time resources of the group. Anything they deemed
unnecessary was a waste of their time.
Diverged were the findings on whether the students would spend more time on tutorial as
their HKCEE approached, Some Secondary 5 students spent more, while others less. For
the ones already been patronising tutorial, some would enrol to more classes until they
reached a limit in scheduling more timeslots. At the same time, some others resorted to
self-study after experiencing large-classes tutorial not suitable to their learning style.
The students were asked deliberately why they are not seeking for assistance from
parents or siblings. From both groups, a clear answer was the lack of relevant expertise or
subject matter knowledge on the topics the students were studying on. There was also an
issue of knowledge expiration, highlighted by the change in examination syllabus. The
lack of time for working parents and poor family member relationship sometimes
contributed to the need of tutorial too (for example, a student said she would assist her
younger sister in exchange of pocket money). In a nutshell, a third-party paid-service
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Peter Lam 39
provided the necessary assistance on a need basis.
Interesting enough, when the students were asked further why they did not seek for
teacher assistance, which supposed to be free and readily accessible during day-time, we
might have touched on the sensitive issues of perceived incompetency and lack of trust.
High-achievers did not want to give a bad impression to their teachers that they failed to
comprehend their lessons. Some found the teachers being so tied-up in school
administrative work and therefore refrained from disturbing them. A Group B student
simply ignored his teacher as he considered the failure to deliver the knowledge and/or
preparing HKCEE was the root cause of his seeking a third-party opinion and instructions
on the same subject.
Question 7. What is your expectation from the tutorial service? What do you want
out of the tutorial service?
Tangible artefacts including lecture notes, exercise books, worksheets, mock examination
papers and intangible services like composition marking, answering techniques,
examination skills or the more controversial speculated examination questions were all
mentioned in the discussion.
To a lesser extent, some partcipants would like to meet new friends in tutorial. A Group A
girl gave a vivid account of her experience in a smaller scale tutorial school where only a
handful of students studied in the class with a more friendly atmosphere. Group C
participants also reported a similar incident in a large-class tutorial school.
However, if there was only one single expectation from the tutorial, it was academic
EDUC 8621 Major Paper in Education Tutorial Service: a Commodity or a Comfort Blanket?
Peter Lam 40
achievement. With all the artefacts and services purchased from the tutorial school,
students expected some degree of grade improvements in school examinations and
ultimately in the HKCEE. The students sought for value out of their money a bang for
the buck. From the word-of-mouth referrals from peers, advertisements and perhaps the
vast number of patrons, students expected the tutors to have the right credentials
providing them subject knowledge. There was no mention of short-cuts or coaching,
yet it was clear that students wanted to have a reputable third-party input in addition to
the lessons received from their regular school.
Comparing Group A and Group C students, we noticed that the aspiration of study
advancement might mean differently to different students. Within Group C, different
target schools for advancing Secondary 6 had got different entrance requirements and
thus affect the amount of effort a student would pay in order to meet them. A Group B
student who was a low-achiever who opted for a different study path bypassing HKCEE
had very low motivation in her study and criticised tutorial not able to fit her at all. It
seemed more appropriate to interpret academic achievement as a relative improvement of
an individual than an absolute grade target at which all students had to achieve.
Question 8 and 9. Do you get what you want? Does your academic result get better?
Originally two separate guiding questions were set to solicit all the intangible gains and
concrete academic returns from tutorial classes. Yet the discussions converged directly to
academic improvement each time and therefore we considered the findings together.
Observing the personal differences from the discussions, students did not seem to prefer
learning in the same way and/or at the same pace at regular schools. They also had little
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Peter Lam 41
choice on what and how to learn as it was usually fixed by their teachers. Tutorial schools
provided an alternative. Was learning richer and thus more permanent in there? The short
answer was NO.
In one respondents account of his English tutorial class, his tutorial school provided him
drilling and detail discourse on HKCEE past questions. He was satisfied when he saw
identical questions in his schools examination soon afterwards. He was familiar with the
questions and even could memorise the correct answers. Nonetheless, years after his
graduation, in retrospect, he detested tutorial service and highly questioned its
contribution towards his English competency in the longer-term.
B2: When I think I have learned something. Learned and remembered. Long-lasting. After a
long time, [I] still have an impression. Perhaps later, I feel my English has really improved.
Besides, my difference is, I feel my English, being more fluent when I read. Besides, those
useless [tutorial] refers to, after you finished a paper, I could remember the exact answers
ABC or D. Then when my teacher [at school] issued [the examination] paper, a reading
comprehension, I could remember the similar answers. By that time, I would think those
[tutorial class] was useless. (Appendix 2, Paragraph 67)
The interdependent factors made measurement of scholastic contribution of tutorial
difficult if not i