We developed Computer Anxiety Scale for Junior High School Studets (CASJ) which consists of 32 questions to be answered "Yes or No", based on the research into anxieties about a computer among junior high school students and the Computer Anxiety Rating Scale for University Students (developed by Weil, M. & Rosen, D. : CARS). For the standardization of this scale, then, the reliability and validity were verified. A total subjects were 1195 junior high school students. The results of an item analysis, goodness of fit test and the test-retest reliability coefficient showed that the reliability of the questionnaire was high. CASJ obtained moderate correlation with a Japanese version of the Test Anxiety Scale for Junior High School Students (r=0.563) and low correlation with the Self Esteem Scale (r=-0.218). And also, a factor analysis of the 32 items, using the principal factors method with varimax rotations, yielded well-defined the following four factors. 1) Worry for failure accompanied by computer operation. 2) active interest in computer. 3) sense of strain felt about a computer. 4) physical sign accompanied by Anxiety about a computer. Further, it is the general tendency among junior high school students that the mean CASJ sores for girls were found to be higher then boys across the school years and the developmental trends of CASJ sores showed the decrease incline.

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This study discusses an experimental research, which was conducted as a fundamental study of information education at the primary school level, to compare results between handwriting and wordprocessing of Japanese Kanji usage. The pre-test was given a class of 5th graders in the 3rd term of a B public primary school in Naruto city. The experiment was carried out to a class of 6th graders in the 1st term of H public primary school in Okayama city. Both classes have been equipped with Japanese wordprocessors and the students have been using them in their learning activities. In the experiment, the students were first asked to handwrite with proper Kanji two sets of 30 Japanese Hiragana sentences, then after a certain duration, they were also asked to input with proper Kanji the same material using wordprocessors. The results of the experiment were as follows: (1) The H school students were able to finish Kanji faster by wordprocessing than by handwriting. The students also could finish faster by wordprocessing than by handwriting. There was no significant difference between them in female students, but there was in male students. (2) To analize the use of Kanji, the author has counted the number of used Kanji in (a) hand written and (b) wordprocessed input, and compared each tendency of usage. It is notable that the use of Kanji is more frequent in wordprocessed input than in handwritten input one for all Kanji at any curriculum level from the 1st to the 6th grade. (3) The difference of Kanji used in handwriting and wordprocessing becomes larger when it comes to the coverage of Kanji at the higher grade levels. This tendency was common both in H primary school and also in B primary shool. (4) As a conclusion, it becomes clear that there is a fundamental difference between the skill of Kanji handwriting and Kanji usage skill by wordprocessing. Because this, it is imperative for us teaching methods which allow both skills to be used in better combination.

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In order to facilitate elementary school children's learning about video tape recording materials in the subject area of the social studies, this study tried to insert visual punctuations into the video so that the child might take clearer cognition of and more interest in it. The visual punctuation used in this study was one cut which involved a conjunctive word "Soshite" ("AND" in English) or a humorous figure representing a sea-horse that was previously rated as most humorous by 120 third grade children. In the experiment, the other 84 third graders who differed in academic achievement were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in which visual punctuations involved the words only (W), the picture only (P), both (WP), or none (control). Ss were presented the same video under the different conditions of visual punctuations and asked to say either "interesting" or "not interesting" by pressing a button with intervals of twenty-seconds during watching the video. Immediately after such experimental session, Ss received questionaire which tested their recognition of several scenes in the video and examined their affective responses to it. And one-week later Ss recieved the same recognition test again. Main results were as follows: (a) Low academic achievers pressed the button of "interesting" more frequently under P condition than under control condition, but high achievers did not show such significant difference. (b) Ss performed better on recognition test under WP, P and W condition than under control condition, while neither sex nor ability factors had main effects and interactions. These significant differences among conditions became more striking and the interaction between sex and visual punctuation was also detected when percents of correct rejections in recognition were computed, with boys showing means of .710, .638, .500 and .521 under WP, P, W and control condition respectively, and girls showing means of .669, .575, .654 and .494 under each above condition. (c) There were no marked differences among conditions on children's ratings about 13 affective aspects of the video except only two, "amusingness" and "brightness". With both aspects P condition produced more negative ratings than the other three conditions. However it seemed reliable to think that visual punctuations had less effect on Ss' sensitivity to the affective aspects of the video. These results suggest that visual punctuations are useful for visual presentation of materials in the screen education. It is especially recommended to use visual punctuations when a schoolteacher originally make up video tape recording materials instead of the ready-made materials such as TV programs.

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In order to develop effective courseware of L2 English language using pictures in micro-computers, the effects of pictures should be empirically investigated. Last year, I conducted an experiment trying to clarify the learning effects of pictures. The results of the experiment showed that pictures helped reading comprehension and that pictures, particularly photographs, were effective for L2 English reading. Based on these results, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between the two primary elements of pictures, that is, construction (pictures containing background information in prose vs. ones giving fragmentary information) and location (pictures seen before the prose passage was read vs. those viewed after the prose was read) and the two types of questions in reading comprehension, that is, factual questions and inferential questions. Moreover, this study aimed to clarify the relationship between pictures and learner characteristics, namely, cognitive styles (field dependence/independence), and individual learner differences. This is because these factors are of great importantance in considering individual differences between learners, especially when students learn using microcomputers. Before the experiment, the prose passage, "A Strange Shopping Center" was selected from an English textbook for junior high school students. The passage consisted of about 300 words. Two black-and-white pitures used in the textbook were chosen. Four types of learning materials were prepared by combining the elements of picture construction and location. The experiment was conducted in June of 1989 with 145 junior high school studets in Niigata Prefecture, who were divided into four groups using the four different types, of learning materials. As a pretest, the results of their mid-term English examinations were used. The subjects first answered the Embedded Figures Test (consisting of 25 items) - this judged students' cognitive style. Secondly, they read the passage; this is followed by a posttest, which was actually a comprehension test. It consisted of twelve factual questions and eight inferential questions. About two weeks later, the subjects took a retention test, the items of which were the same as those on the posttest, although the order of the items were mixed up. After the experiment, ANOVA was conducted on the points of the pretest; no significant difference was found. Consequently, the four groups proved to be comparable which allowed us to use the results in an analysis of post and retention tests. Secondly, ANOVA was applied to the results of the post test. The results proved that significant interaction took place (5% for inferential questions only) between the location x construction and the construction x cognitive style. Thirdly ANOVA was conducted on the results of the retention test. This showed that the main effect of construction was significant at a 5% level on factual items. From these results, it was found that: 1) field independents could utilize pictorial information more effectively than field dependents; 2) on factual questions, presenting pictures after the passage was more effective than presenting them to students before the passage.

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It is considered that Furner's approach can be applied to the computer assisted instruction of KANJI writing for beginners of the Japanese language as a foreign language. It is believed that computer plays an important role in learning KANJI writing, because computers supply the learners the necessary information, provide prompt feedback, while at the same time, allowing them to proceed at their own pace. Therefore, a CAI programme for KANJI writing applied from Furner's instructional strategy in handwriting would be able to assist non-KANJI students of Japanese. For this purpose, two CAI programmes were developed. One, the experimental programme, emphasized perceptual-motor learning which provided much information on writing KANJI through various directions, while giving three times writing practice per character. The other, the contrast programme, emphasized motor process by copying characters repeatedly, while presenting minimal information on character formation, but giving ten times practice per character. Twenty-four subjects, divided into two groups, participated in the experiment. They studied the KANJI for two consecutive days using both the experimental programme on one day and the contrast programme on the other. The two programmes were evaluated by the results of tests of character formation and questionnaires. The results showed there was no significant difference between the two programmes: Regardless of the programme the subjects used to learn KANJI writing, performances on the post-and retention tests were almost the same. Evaluations by the subjects on learning KANJI writing using the two different types of programmes were almost the same as well. Although there was no significant statistical difference between the two approaches in learning KANJI writing, 14 subjects out of 24, preferred the experimental programme to the contrast programme. It seems that CAI programme for learning KANJI writing based on perceptual-motor learning tends to accept among learners.

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