Abstract
In a report by the Central Education Council titled "Toward the Formulation of a Baccalaureate Degree Program" (2008), a distinction was made between "the first-year experience" and "remedial education," which determined the scope of each concept. This report was based on the arguments by Hamana at the round-table symposiums about the first-year experience/introductory education in the 26th (2004) and the 28th (2006) conventions of the Liberal and General Education Society of Japan. According to the report, the distinction between "the first year experience" and "remedial education" lies in the credit approvability of the content. The implication of this is that "the first-year experience" should be included in a regular curriculum while "remedial education" should not because it covers the contents of secondary education. In reality, however, this distinction does not explain the overlap of activities of the Japanese Association of First-Year Experience at Universities and Colleges (JAFYE) and the Japan Association for Developmental Education (JADE). In this study, the author reexamines the concepts of "the first-year experience" and "remedial education", and tries to reinvent the distinction between them so that the confusion in using these concepts in learning assistance settings at higher education institutes will decrease.
