How students deal with pressure of public examinations : a diary-interview study of eight candidates taking the public examinations in Hong Kong

• Main Author: Tse, Mei Yee
• Published: University of Bristol 2014
• Subjects: 371.26
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.684640

It is said that students in Hong Kong are under great pressure to succeed in public examinations since the educational reform was launched. In order to explore ways to help students suffering with pressure and anxiety, the researcher conducted a qualitative study on a group of candidates for understanding the phenomenon. The researcher adopted a theoretical sampling strategy to select 8 candidates for this study. The researcher adopted the diary and interview method to capture data. Zimmerman and Wieder (1977) called this combined method as a 'diary-interview method' for which the diary was often used as a basis for intensive interviewing (Zimmerman & Wieder, 1977; Bell, 2006). Accordingly, the researcher used the diary method to understand the daily issues and pressure of the participants; and then used the interview method for further investigations. Data obtained in diaries provided the researcher with many clues and themes for in-depth interviews. After data collection, she used the method of thematic analysis for data management and data analysis. In this study, through the diary method, the researcher found the daily workloads of the students were great, which includes the workload from the School-based Assessments (SBA), presentations, projects and supplementary lessons for examinations. She also found some students suffered from different sickness such as stomach ache and headache. More importantly, through in-depth interviews, the researcher found the family was a great factor affecting the students to face the public examinations, and this family factor complicatedly interlocked with the Chinese culture of 'filial piety'. The family was an important motivational factor for the students, at the same time, had made them bear significant additional pressure for learning. Furthermore, the researcher found that components of examination pressure, including cognitive, emotional, behavioural and physical, interacted with some important patterns. The findings were discussed in-depth and recommendations for interventions are made in this study