Universities and colleges in Japan have experienced sweeping and sudden changes during these ten years. One of new trends in such changing environment is exemplified as the rising movement for learning outcomes assessment. However, In Japan, we have less historical background to assess learning outcomes and students’ growth through standardized tests and student self-reported surveys. We have developed the student surveys systems for learning improvement, so called JCIRP (Japanese Cooperative Institutional Research Program) since 2004. Our program consists of three student surveys such as Japanese Freshman Survey, Japanese College Student Survey, and Japanese Junior College Student Survey. Until 2012, over 100,000 students participated in our program. It seems that our student survey system has institutionalized the culture to assess student learning outcomes based on the student self-reported data and has been widely accepted in Japanese higher education institutions as the indirect assessment system. Each university is able to use the indirect assessment as the IR system for effective educational management. In this paper, the profile of first-year students will be demonstrated through the analysis of first-year student survey data and the implication of first-year experience will be discussed.
