The influence of classroom openness and citizenship efficacy on adolescents' civic behaviour: The Hong Kong case

In recent years, Hong Kong has actively participated in such international research projects as the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2009 (ICCS 2009), organised by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), with the aim of learning more about the performance of Hong Kong students in different spheres. Such international studies generate invaluable data with a scope beyond that which any individual researcher could achieve. Secondary analysis of this data helps inform policies and practices. In this study, the Hong Kong sample from the ICCS 2009 was subjected to secondary analysis. The sample comprised 2,902 junior secondary students with a mean age of 14.3 years. The sample was used for the investigation of adolescents' civic behaviour, and to identify the factors that contribute to such behaviour. The schools were chosen for the ICCS 2009 study through stratified random sampling and an intact class from each chosen school was surveyed. This study built on social cognitive theory to develop a conceptual model of the effects of the classroom climate on students' self-reported civic behaviour. The study then tested the model using a two-step multilevel structural equation model. The results showed that the classroom climate had both direct and indirect effects on adolescents' civic behaviour at both the student- and class-level. This study contributes to the application of social cognitive theory using secondary data and demonstrates how this theory can be used for research into adolescents' civic behaviour. By adopting a two-stage approach, five sets of plausible values were established for each scale developed using item response theory (IRT). Multilevel structural equation modelling (MSEM) was then used. The hypothetical model, based on social cognitive theory, was examined and the implications of the model discussed. This study can stimulate future research to explore more deeply the influences on adolescents exerted by different people in their social lives. Further, the secondary data analysis in this study identified different scale structures from the international scales identified by the IEA. It can therefore provide insights that are beneficial to future research on local contexts using the ICCS 2009 data. All rights reserved.