National security law education in Hong Kong : qualitative evaluation based on the perspective of the students

Abstract

In this paper, we adopted a qualitative evaluation approach to understand the subjective views of the students on a program on law abidance leadership education covering the Hong Kong National Security Law. The program involves a 3 h lecture and 7 h of self-study on topics surrounding national security. To evaluate the program, we adopted a general qualitative research design to collect data via focus groups using a semi-structured interview guide. Researchers with a doctoral degree and qualitative research experiences conducted six focus groups involving 52 randomly selected students, with 6 to 12 participants per group. Results showed high inter-rater reliability in the thematic analyses. With reference to the questions in the semi-structured interviews, several observations could be highlighted. First, students had different views on different aspects of the lecture, including content, arrangement, lecture notes and assessment. Second, students generally had positive views of teachers’ interaction with students and their teaching performance. Third, students had positive learning experiences and they perceived benefits and value of the program. Fourth, despite the positive comments of the students, some students proposed suggestions for improvement. Finally, the program was not seen as brainwashing by the students. Together with evaluation findings based on four other evaluation studies, the triangulated findings suggest that this program promoted the knowledge about law abidance leadership in the students and nurtured their positive attitudes towards law abidance.