APASO-III - Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it necessary to refine APASO-II?

How is APASO-III aligned with the enhanced School Development and Accountability (SDA) framework?

What are the major revisions on APASO-III? What are the key updates in APASO-III compared to APASO-II?

Why isn’t there an option of “Not applicable” in the scales, as provided in the Stakeholder Survey (SHS)?

APASO-III includes assessment items relating to national identity. Are there any presumptions for these items?

Why have the wordings of the subscales / assessment items in APASO-III been refined?

Is it mandatory for schools to collect data for specific items within APASO-III? Are schools required to submit student data from the APASO-III survey to the Education Bureau (EDB)?

When conducting the External School Review (ESR), will the Education Bureau (EDB) make reference to the information from APASO-III to assess school performance?

What principles should schools consider when planning the use of APASO-III?

How should schools select the scales or subscales in APASO-III for evaluation?

Can schools amend the items in the subscales?

Which schools are suitable for using APASO-III?

Must APASO-III be used by student guidance teachers/ master/ mistress?

Will the use of APASO-III increase the workload of teachers?

When administering the questionnaire, can teachers explain the items to their students?

When schools conduct a questionnaire survey of APASO-III to collect data for the Key Performance Measures (KPM), what is the minimum percentage of students that must be randomly sampled to make the survey results acceptable?

Is the norm data updated every year?

What are Q-score and P-score?

Can schools make a direct comparison between the data from APASO-III and APASO-II?

Which APASO-III reports are provided? How can schools interpret the data from these reports?

Can schools use the data obtained from APASO to assess student performance and as a basis for comparing the effectiveness of different schools?

If the Q-scores or P-scores of a student group on certain subscales are lower than the norm, does this indicate that their performance in those aspects is unsatisfactory?

Which data are used to define the socio-economic status (SES) of students’ families in APASO-III?

How to interpret the data of negatively themed subscales, such as “negative affect”, of APASO-III?

Does obtaining a Q-score of 116 on a certain subscale indicate that there is no room for improvement in student performance in that area?

What types of training programmes and support does the Education Bureau (EDB) provide for teachers?