An evaluation study of the teachers’ receptivity of the Hong Kong Catholic Social Ethics curriculum

This paper aims to report on the evaluation outcome of the training programme and the teaching kits of the Catholic Social Ethics (National Education) Curriculum initiated and commissioned by the Catholic Education Office and implemented by the Centre for Catholic Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong between 2015-16. The evaluation team comprises five academics from the Education University of Hong Kong (formerly the Hong Kong Institute of Education). The main objectives of the evaluation are to study (1) teachers’ perception of the efficacy of the training programme in terms of its practicality, suitability and relevance and (2) teachers’ degree of acceptance of the use of the curriculum materials and the Catholic Social Ethics to be introduced in the curriculum.
The research methodology is two-fold. One is a post-programme questionnaire of the 160 participating teachers and principals and the other is a qualitative school evaluation case studies of four ramdonly chosen schools from among the 40-50 school cohort. Teachers/students’ interviews, lesson observations and evaluation of lesson plans designed were used to collect the field data. Overall, all the entries of the questionnaire show an average ‘satisfactory’ or even higher ratings, implicating that the teacher participants find the training programme and the curriculum materials practical, suitable and relevant to their school use. They also find the Catholic Social Ethics acceptable and worthy of introduction. The qualitative interview data revealed that some school-based factors might facilitate or inhibit the introduction of the new curriculum into the current primary school curriculum. Copyright © 2017 International Conference on Teaching Catholic Social Ethics and Civic Education.