Evaluating the Impact of Changing Secondary Education Curricula in Hong Kong: A Comparative Study of Science and Technology Sub-degree Students in Generic Competencies Development

Holistic development of students has always played an integral part in tertiary education system. In order to have a better understanding on the background of the freshmen, a series of survey was conducted to examine freshmen’s perception of 14 generic competencies. In this paper, we focused on the findings related to the freshmen of science and technology (ST) sub-degree programmes in Hong Kong. A sample of 321 ST freshmen had completed self-assessment questionnaires which were used to analyse the correlation with 14 generic competencies. The results indicated that, although freshmen graduated from two different secondary school curricula showed similar strengths and weakness in their self-evaluation, those who graduated from the new secondary school education system had a comparatively divergent self-perception of their personal development in generic competencies