Tutorial Service: a Commodity or a Comfort Blanket?

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


Peter Lam 3

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


Peter Lam 4

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


Peter Lam 5

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.


Peter Lam 6

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.)


Peter Lam 7

(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


Peter Lam 8

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%


Peter Lam 9

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


Peter Lam 10

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..


Peter Lam 11

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).


Peter Lam 12

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).


Peter Lam 13

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.


Peter Lam 14

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).


Peter Lam 15

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.


Peter Lam 16

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.


Peter Lam 17

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


Peter Lam 18

(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


Peter Lam 19

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.


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.


Peter Lam 21

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


Peter Lam 22

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.


Peter Lam 23

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)


Peter Lam 24

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.


Peter Lam 25

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.


Peter Lam 26

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.


Peter Lam 27

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


Peter Lam 28

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


Peter Lam 29

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


Peter Lam 30

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


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


Peter Lam 32

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


Peter Lam 33

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


Peter Lam 34

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


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.


Peter Lam 36

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


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


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


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


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


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

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Tutorial Service: a Commodity or a Comfort Blanket?