Abstract
The purpose of this study was to clarify and overview the current status of all colleges and universities (hereinafter, CUs) in Japan offering physical education courses as a component of liberal arts in higher education (hereinafter, PE in higher education) since the first complete survey that was conducted in 2000. Out of the 775 CUs existing as of August 2016, 742 CUs excluding 24 graduate universities and nine PE colleges were included in the survey. The following five items of information were extracted on PE in higher education from the CUs rules，handbook for students and syllabus posted on each CU website: 1) present/not present, 2) course type, 3) compulsory/optional, 4) number of compulsory credits, and 5) integrated title of the courses group. Among the 742 CUs surveyed, 97.7% (725 CUs) offered PE in higher education, except for 17 CUs (2.3%) that did not offer PE in higher education. The 725 CUs offering PE in higher education were categorized into courses comprising mainly practical skills (98.2%; 712 CUs), lectures (63.4%; 460 CUs) and compulsory for all departments (28.0%; 203 CUs), and compulsory for some departments (40.8%; 296 CUs) including practical skills (94.6%; 280 CUs), lectures (31.1% ; 92 CUs), and practical skills and lectures (25.7%; 76 CUs) in undergraduate departments. The number of PE in higher education credits offered as compulsory subjects was 2.15 ± 0.84 (mean ± standard deviation) and 0.5 to 5.0 (minimum - maximum) credits. The terms included in the integrated titles of PE in higher education courses for 725 CUs offering such courses were “Sports” (42.8%; 310 CUs), “Physical education” (39.9%; 289 CUs), “Health” (37.8%; 274 CUs), “Health education” (18.6%; 135 CUs), “Health and physical education” (17.8%; 129 CUs), and “Science” (14.8%; 107 CUs). The results revealed that PE in higher education was offered at approximately 98% of all CUs in Japan, and that the courses were compulsory at approximately 40% of them. Therefore, it can be said that PE in higher education is currently being offered at most CUs. This study has provided an overview of PE in higher education in Japan for the first time since 2000. Future research will involve conducting current status surveys of the curriculum contents focusing on the educational system for PE．
