Qualitative evaluation of a credit-bearing leadership subject in Hong Kong

Abstract

A subject entitled "Tomorrow's Leaders" aiming at promoting the holistic development of university students was offered to students at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Towards the end of the term, students were invited to give descriptors and metaphors about the subject. Based on the written narratives of 1,029 students, it was observed that most students used positive descriptors to describe the subject. Concerning the metaphors that could stand for the subject, most of the metaphors are positive in nature. Reliability analyses based on randomly selected coded responses showed that intra- and inter-rater reliabilities were high. In conjunction with other evaluation findings, the present study suggests that this subject was able to promote the holistic development in Chinese university students in Hong Kong.