One of the major industries supporting Japan is the overseas and domestic shipping business, and the safety of a logistics system and protection of global environment have been developed through the excellence and skills of the Japanese seafarers who work in the shipping business. However, the number of skillful seafarers, who were born during the Japanese baby boom, has decreased due to retirement. Therefore, maintaining the previous safety of the logistics system and environmental protection is becoming difficult. In order for the young seafarer to become skillful, it was previously thought that a period of about ten years is required. However, nowadays, it seems that a skillful seafarer's training is achieved more swiftly. The traditional method of education or training has limitations under this present situation. The aim of this study is to discover new training techniques for obtaining an effective and practical result within the given limited period of time. A group discussion learning method is considered for acquiring the new educational technique in the training ships. Some experiments for investigating the effect of this technique, compared with the conventional technique, are performed, and the validity of a group discussion learning method is shown from these results.
