In our study, we examined the psychological structure of junior high-school students participating in compulsory martial arts, focusing on their image of Kendo. Subjects of the survey included 389 students (156 boys, 233 girls, and average age 13.7 ± 0.8 years) enrolled in public junior high-schools in Chiba prefecture. In the 10 sections of the survey form, beginning with the phrase "What is Kendo," we asked the subjects to complete the sentences with what came to their mind. We further requested them to choose one sentence that had the strongest image of Kendo. Subsequently, text mining was performed on all the sentences we obtained, and the extracted words and phrases were factor-analyzed.
Consequently, it became clear that the image of Kendo differs depending on whether the subjects had experience in Kendo lessons. Factors such as "Budo, Kiai, and Yuko-datotsu" were recognized by those with Kendo experience, while factors such as "Culture, Reigi (etiquette), and Budo" were recognized by those without Kendo experience. The factor of "Budo" was common for both sets of students with regard to their image of Kendo.
