An examination of the meaning of kounai-ken by the elementary and junior high school teachers

Abstract

“Kounai-ken”, the training for teachers within school, have been played a essential role for Japanese education. School teachers can develop their own growth and establish the relationship among them for their learning about their jobs through “Kounai-ken”, then it can serve to lead the effective school improvement. In this way “Kounai-ken” has the multi-function for teachers. However, there is the difference in the meaning of “Kounai-ken” among teachers, so that “Kounai-ken” can not necessarily play the role for them. This study focuses on what the meaning of “Kounai-ken” is for teachers. We used two methods, questionnaire survey and metaphor-making task to explore the meaning of “Kounai-ken”. The participant is 120 elementary and junior-high school teachers. We found out that the teachers tend to lack awareness about the the aspect of making report as their research product compared to the aspect as the place of individual learning of "Kounai-ken". In addition, from the answers obtained by the metaphor-making task, it suggested that the negative images for "Kounai-ken" include their negative recognition for the extracurricularity of class presentation and preparation, and the dissatisfaction about the limited their freedom at inquiry process and the unclearity of its product.