The purpose of this study was to reveal a change in consciousness (Survey1) and expectations (Survey2) among first grade junior high school students by gender from before and after kendo classes, and to consider issues surrounding the first stages of kendo classes.
The survey method was a questionnaire which the authors prepared and it was conducted from November 2018 to March 2019. The subjects were 327 first grade junior high school students who attend one of 3 junior high schools which conduct kendo classes. The subjects answered the questionnaire both before and after the kendo class with answers on a four-point scale. Absentees and students that forgot to fill out the answer sheets were excluded, so the in the final analysis there were 274 (118male; 156 female) subjects. The analyses were in the form of a t-test in Survey 1 and Wilcoxon-test in Survey 2.
The results of Survey 1 showed positive changes for both males and females in areas such as “if you learn kendo, you become polite” and “you can acquire kendo skills quickly”. In addition, it revealed that males experienced positive changes regarding skill, and for females positive changes in areas such as willpower (kiryoku) and kendo’s teachings. Survey 2 suggested that males had a decline in expectation in acquiring the skills of offence and defense, and females had a decline in expectation in following traditional behaviors.
In conclusion, this study suggests that in order to increase the positive consciousness of kendo, address the issues of devising learning processes and teaching tools, and preventing a decline in the expectations of kendo classes, it is necessary to devise teaching materials and instruction methods and that teachers acquire technical knowledge of kendo.
