Examining the relationship between out-of-class learning time and outcomes has revealed that the correlation is not significant. For students to acquire learning outcomes, it is necessary to focus on the time spent studying outside of class and their “active attitude” toward learning. This study aimed to examine the relationship between out-of-class study time, active learning attitude, grades, and a sense of gaining competence. The participants were 800 university students (50% female, mean age=20.21, SD=1.21). Hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that active learning attitudes were positively correlated with grades and a sense of gaining competence. However, out-of-class learning time was weakly related to learning outcomes. Furthermore, the interaction effects between out-of-class learning time and active learning attitudes were not significantly related to the achievement of grades and the sense of gaining competence. These results suggest that the importance of an active learning attitude is more important in the acquisition of learning outcomes. Finally, the study limitations and future directions are discussed.

  In May 2022, Japanʼs Council for the Creation of Future Education, chaired by the Prime Minister, set a target to increase the proportion of university students majoring in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and other science-based disciplines from 35% to around 50%. With this policy trend emphasizing STEM, it has become a priority to capture the current state of, and issues with, teaching methods and learning outcomes in STEM higher education. Although the Japanese government has been endorsing the replacement of traditional lecture with active learning in higher education for more than ten years, little is known about how successful this endeavor is. In particular, there has been almost no empirical measurement of how widespread active learning is in basic science courses. Furthermore, while some research found that introductory physics courses in Japanese university classrooms had little effect on raising the level of conceptual understanding of Newtonian mechanics, other basic science courses, such as mathematics and chemistry, also need to be investigated.

  On the other hand, internationally, discipline-based education research (DBER) has been producing an overwhelming amount of evidence that demonstrate the advantage of active learning over traditional lecture in terms of enhancing conceptual understanding. Most research concerning this domain tends to treat students as objects; that is, they objectively measure the studentsʼ understanding using concept inventory scores. Relatively less research attention has been devoted to studentsʼ agency as learners and their self-assessment of understanding. Such research has so far produced inconsistent findings, some of which rebut the advantage of active learning, while others support the advantage in line with the objective measurement.

  With the above backgrounds, this research has conducted an online survey and collected data from 2,000 graduates and students in STEM and other science-based fields at various universities across Japan. The online questionnaire examined how first- and second-year students enrolled in bachelorʼs degree programs perceived their educational experiences in introductory mathematics, physics, and chemistry courses.

  The results indicate that if those courses were taught in active learning formats rather than traditional lecture formats, their self-assessed understanding of each disciplineʼs basic concepts tends to be significantly higher. This tendency is consistent between selective and non-selective institutions. Despite the benefits of active learning, it has been highlighted that traditional lectures continue to dominate basic science courses. This dominance is also independent of degree of university selectivity.

  In conclusion, nationally, this paper reveals a persistent dominance of traditional lectures in the basic science courses at Japanese universities. Internationally, based on a nation-wide survey of students and graduates, the paper provides an important piece of new evidence for the argument that active learning is advantageous in terms of self-assessed conceptual understanding.

  Universities need to enhance learner-centered teaching to develop the qualities and abilities that will lead students from high school to college. To understand how faculty members belief new teaching methods and engage in learner-centered teaching, it is necessary to derive valid analytical perspectives. Based on the learner-centered teaching perspective, there have been no empirical studies that focus on the beliefs on teaching of university faculty members that can lead to appropriate suggestions for faculty development training. In this study, we focused on the structure of the beliefs that were held by teachers involved in educational improvement on education and teaching from the perspective of learner-centered teaching.

  First, a preliminary survey was conducted to develop a scale of teaching beliefs for improving learner-centered teaching. The survey obtained data from 168 university faculty members, which were subjected to factor analysis; five factors were identified (Study 1). Next, through a semi-structured interview survey of nine faculty members, the relationship between each factor was qualitatively explored with a focus on “learner-centered teaching orientation” to supplement the content validity of the scale (Study 2). In addition, a survey was conducted to validate the stability and discrimination aspects of the modified scale using newly collected data (Study 3). Regarding stability, we used path analysis to confirm that each of the four subscales (“sense of resistance to change”, “sense of acceptance of support”, “fixed competence belief”, and “teaching efficacy”) had an impact on “learner-centered teaching orientation”. Regarding discriminability, a comparison was made between a group of 129 university faculty members who were asked to respond exclusively when they participated in a training on faculty development and a group of 61 faculty members who voluntarily participated in the similar training. Statistically significant differences were found for all variables.

  Based on the results of the analysis, we presented suggestions for educational development support. We argued that creating opportunities for faculty members to share their successes in improving their teaching is effective and enables them to increase their teaching efficacy. It is also important to consider how classroom development can be encouraged in the context of mutually beneficial collaboration. In future studies, accumulating research on educational practices that utilize this scale is necessary, as is conducting qualitative research that derive effective suggestions.

In this study, information literacy is defined as the ability to search, evaluate, utilize, and disseminate information effectively. In university education, information literacy should be developed in a specific discipline in each class with specific subject content. This is because information literacy is more effectively acquired through the experience of using information in specific contexts, for example, searching and evaluating information which relates to the subject content, or processing, using, and expressing the content in course assignments. Therefore, learning activities in class should enable students to acquire both an understanding of course content and information literacy simultaneously. Recently, image information has become more influential and it is necessary for students to learn how to properly handle this information. One such activity that is designed to acquire both the understanding of course content and information literacy including images simultaneously is the creation of infographics by students. The infographic creation process should use theme-specific information effectively and contain all aspects of information literacy defined above. With this background, this study developed and practiced assignments to create infographics in a consumer education university class, with the aim of integrating the achievement of course content understanding and acquisition of information literacy. In addition, to facilitate the infographics creation process, we developed an “idea-generation worksheet” based on the “dialogical arguments model” and included it in the assignment.

  We examined the learning outcomes of this assignment by analyzing the evaluation of products using a four-level assessment rubric and the studentsʼ reflections on the assignment through open-ended writing questions. As a result of the rubric assessment, most students were at the lower level of criteria (understanding content, information searching, information evaluation, information using, and information dissemination). In the coding and analyses of the studentsʼ reflections, it was revealed that their information literacy was limited to understanding factual knowledge of course content, and acquiring specific skills (e.g. internet searching, operating computer applications). Despite these results, students indicated that they organize their self-generated ideas and put them into clear words in order to clarify what themes and content should be included in the infographics they would create. From the above results, we concluded that the assignment needs to be improved to facilitate deeper engagement with the subject content and information among the students. However, we found that the assignments using the creation of infographics may facilitate students clarify their ideas or thoughts through idea-gathering and verbalization.

  The main focus of quality assurance (QA) has long shifted toward internal QA, the process in which each institution assesses learning outcomes to improve their education. However, the literature on QA has focused on official quality management (QM) processes, whereas little is known about how QM relates to each individual lecture. This is also the case with medical education whose QA system is nationally standardized with program accreditation, national curriculum, and assessment tests.

  This article aims to reveal how to make the connection between QM and lectures while considering facultyʼs perceptions. In doing so, interviews with two faculty members who are responsible for lectures on medical communication in a Japanese medical school whose program is accredited by the Japan Accreditation Council for Medical Education (JACME) were conducted. Two main findings were attained. First, the facultyʼs interests and motivations for their own lectures were unrelated to official QM procedures in their affiliated institution, which sometimes led them to see QM as limiting their ideal education. Additionally, they could not gain satisfaction from the assessment results that are officially regarded as one of the most important indicators of learning outcomes. This is because they believed that these scores did not reflect the values they want to prioritize in their lectures. Second, however, they were partially in favor of QM because they can associate it with their original educational interests and motivations. Precisely, they thought QM positively affects their teaching practices in enhancing cooperation with other staff and ensuring communication with students, things that they hope to pursue in their lectures.

  These findings suggest that the facultyʼs reinterpretation of the effect of QM would be essential for faculty to positively consider QM in their lecture improvement processes. This means that not only to prevail officially delineated QM procedures to faculty but also to respect each facultyʼs educational motivation in encouraging the reinterpretation of the effect of the official QM steps would be a solution for connecting QM to educational improvements. With these suggestions, possible ways to enrich the association between QM and lectures are discussed.

  Many Japanese universities provide various initiatives and assistance in order to facilitate the transition from high school to university with the purpose of promoting adaptation to universities for students. One such initiative is new student orientation, which often takes the form of preparing schedules, providing guidance on course registration, and the introduction to facilities and undergraduate faculties/departments. However, the details of such initiatives differ among universities to match the characteristics of the undergraduate students.

  This study examines an orientation initiative that incorporates adventure education for new students in the department of engineering at a medium-sized, regional private university. It is similar to the Outdoor Initiative Programs conducted in both the United States and Canada. Programs such as these aim to develop relationships between the faculty members and students as well as among students themselves with the aim to give them a comfortable fresh start as university students.

  We assessed the long-term educational effects of Project Adventure; an adventure education program incorporated into the new studentʼs orientation. We designed an educational program as well as numerous helpful worksheets, and analyzed the short-term educational effects presented immediately after the program is finished via participant observation, worksheet descriptions, and pre- and post-questionnaire surveys. We then conducted a follow-up survey (in the form of questionnaire surveys and interviews) to confirm the long-term educational effects through the end of the third year. Further, by comparing and combining the results of these multiple surveys, we examined the combination of the experience process of our program, along with the experience of student learning and student life. The results revealed the following points. First, the program gave students the opportunity to take the first step to learning the meaning and pleasure of the cooperation with their peers through direct experience. Second, the relationships formed among the groups during their participation were maintained during the studentsʼ university careers. Along with the proximity of the instructors, this led to the formation of a strong learning community through a continuing sense of camaraderie. Further, the students were able to apply their experience in this program by facing new challenges; the cycle of facing and succeeding these challenges led to experience accumulation, paving the way for a virtuous cycle of learning. This study shows that the educational effects of the adventure education program when students enter university are long-term, extending to the very end of the third year.

  This study attempts to examine how to approach content and form in teaching report writing in a class of first-year students with time constraints through a design-based research approach, by placing the report in the same academic context as the thesis. The practice was designed through instructional design, aiming to promote schema formation regarding academic writing by exposing students to the process of academic writing. The main activities included the following: a task wherein students search and analyze articles according to their interests to deepen their understanding of being an academic, a task wherein students create a story line as well as search for information to set up a problem, an experience of the process to increase the transferability of learning through collaborative learning, and language development through cooperative learning including peer review.

  The results of the first practice showed a positive effect on the problem setting of the report, but not so much on the format. Therefore, a color-coding task was introduced in this practice to make the students focus on expression as well. Consequently, positive effects on the formality as well as the problem setting were observed. The results of the questionnaire and interviews with students indicated that even when students write reports alone, they write them with an awareness of the process they experienced in the practice, such as by referring to the actual format of the paper and creating a storyline before beginning to write. Furthermore, students wrote to demonstrate their new findings and were pleased to have their questions answered, which also influenced their attitudes toward writing. This suggests that reports should be placed in the same academic context as papers, even for first-year students. It was subsequently suggested that incorporating tasks with actual papers to invite them into the academic community and having them read analytically would promote the formation of the schema necessary for report writing.

  The first language (L1) use is imperative for developing the quality of second-language (L2) writings. L2 learners with relatively lower L2 ability tend to use the direct translation from their L1 to L2. During the process of producing their L2 writings, the cognitive process of L1 paraphrasing is necessary for better L2 sentences. Studentsʼ learning on L1 paraphrasing could be facilitated by the usage of machine translation (MT). Due to the recent development of neural MT, L2 sentences can be produced with high readability if L1 sentences are effectively pre-edited.

  This study investigates what L2 learners can learn by using MT and examines how studentsʼ L1 (Japanese) sentences are rephrased. The participating students are 24 Japanese L2 learners. The targeted task of this study are 800-word reports which were done for their liberal arts classes written in Japanese. The participants firstly translated these into L2 before using MT. Secondly, they used neural MT to compare the MT translations with the original L1 sentences. Focusing on the MT L2 sentences which inaccurately reflected the original information, they pinned down the problematic points in MT sentences and pre-edited the corresponding L1 sentences. Lastly, they translated into L2 on their own and then used MT once again. They repeated the above procedure until MT produced the L2 sentences consistent with the content of the L1 reports.

  The results showed that the MT use did enhance studentsʼ learning. During this process, participants realized important points in terms of syntactic and semantic/content development. The qualitative analysis illustrated that the usage of MT renews studentsʼ focus on the fundamentals of L1 paraphrasing. To be more specific, the participants learned how to effectively generate L1 sentences by analyzing MT translations. Therefore, it can be concluded that neural MT can be an educational supporting tool for L2 learners to acquire the ability to create L1 sentences for effectively translating them into L2. It is suggested that a MT-used writing instruction should be utilized more for developing the quality of studentsʼ L2 writings.

  In university education, it is required to promote quality assurance in three aspects: university-wide, program-wide, and class-wide, and to link them organically. In particular, it is important to strengthen the linkage between program evaluation and improvement according to the characteristics of each specialized field, while developing an internal quality assurance system and utilizing the institutional research (IR) function. However, sharing knowledge on good practices and tips for program evaluation and improvement based on data is not sufficient. In this roundtable we focus on the humanities and art fields to elucidate the current status and issues in using educational information and IR in faculties, based on the results of our previous research. After reviewing the results of the national and the interview surveys, we will discuss the challenges and prospects for the development of tips.

  Based on the good practices extracted from the interview survey, five proposed guidelines that will serve as the pillars of the tips are tentatively formulated as follows. 1: Clarifying the purpose, questions, evaluation approach, and evaluation indicators and criteria; 2: Collecting data to answer evaluation questions; 3: Analyzing data and evaluating questions; 4: Sharing evaluation results and recommendations with stakeholders; 5: Developing an organizational structure and IR function to support evaluation and improvement. Future research issues should include adjusting the appropriate number and hierarchy of subcategories supporting each guideline according to the classification and organization of good practices based on the five proposed guidelines.

  This roundtable featured two internship programs as liberal education. Internships require a certain level of maturity that is lacking in the knowledge and skills provided by major and vocational education, such as compassion, insight, and communication skills. We discussed the importance of liberal education for the holistic development of students.

  By discussing the “studentsʼ self-directed learning” in 2019 and “the idea of lack” in 2020, we recognized that certain gaps exist in the major-driven curriculum (Kinukawa, 2015). We examined the gaps in liberal education, which can be fulfilled through learning experiences, both in and extra curriculum.

  Report 1: The D-Internship program aims at collaboration and co-creation between small and medium-sized companies and students from multiple universities in Takahashi River area, Okayama. The programʼs goal was regional development aimed at revitalizing and fostering the local human resources and eventually enabling these human resources to settle in the region.

  Report 2: Nagoya University of Commerce & Business is developing an internship program as the field-method of commerce education. This experimental internship revealed the following two concerns through an evaluation by both the company and the university: (1) the most important issue is evidence-based, and (2) students do not have the kind of expertise that people in the industry naturally have. In the process where the students were given a challenge in a company and found a solution through university learning, the faculty who planned this program observed a higher level of the “studentsʼ self-directed learning” than expected.

  In this roundtable, we discussed the manner in which changes in the environment of university students influence learning and growth using data from annual surveys for 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2021.

  The results revealed that (1) active learning behaviors increase due to the influence of reforms in university education. However, the time allocated for academic learning has not increased. (2) University students are increasingly behaving similar to high school students, and various types of students are emerging. Lastly, (3) the impact of the COVID-19 is occurring in many aspects of academics, such as friendship among peers and online classes. Moreover, the results pointed out problems, such as decreased number of friends and reduced sense of growth, which are more pronounced for students enrolling in 2020.

  The changes observed in the learning and life of university students are diverse and displayed a simultaneous increase in active and passive properties. In addition, the effects of educational reforms and damages due to COVID-19 differ across students. Several issues are ongoing, such as the lack of increase in time for academic learning and improvement in the quality of learning.

  In the discussion with the participants, the study confirmed the need to understand the ongoing changes, recognize the various difficulties faced by individual students, and continue to consider how to best provide support that fosters independence. In the future, paying close attention to the behaviors and values of university students who were affected by the COVID-19 will be necessary when they become working adults in comparison with previous and future generations.

  This roundtable attempted to add inductive reasoning to the philosophical and essentialist discussion of the issue of liberal arts education in health and human services universities that we have been discussing. In this study, we focused on the current state of assumed competencies in health and human services universities and conducted text mining of diploma policies (DPs). This study discussed issues toward the establishment of a common basic curriculum based on the results of analyzing the trends of DPs at universities in the three fields of pharmacy, nursing, and social welfare.

  At the round table, the characteristics of DPs in the three fields of pharmacy, nursing, and social welfare are reported. Based on these reports, we discussed the possibility of task shift/sharing from the viewpoints of professional practice and curriculum characteristics in each field, as well as the challenges of a common basic curriculum.

  Ethics as a topic of discussion has grown in recent years against a background of research misconduct and the need for thoughtful dissemination of ideas on such timely issues as diversity and inclusion. Practitioners of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) must be alert to the potential for abuse in research and particularly considerate of their students as likely research subjects.

  In this roundtable, four presenters shared their perspectives on (1) educational ethics, (2) research on human subjects, (3) university research ethics review procedures and nursing education research, and (4) advocating the SoTL. They discussed with other participants not only how to avoid research misconduct, but also the role of university teachers as the main actors who build a foundation of ethics and the appropriate use of data about students in the SoTL.

  As expected, most of the discussion reflected a need for exceptionally high standards of educational ethics in order to achieve research and teaching goals. Although discussants felt some discomfort at recognizing the glaring gap between where they are and where they want to be, they found the exchange most meaningful and a necessary preliminary step to effectively pursuing their goals. Hopefully, ongoing discussions will promote not only improvement in the SoTL but also the enhancement of ethics in higher education.

  Article 66-6 of the Ordinance for the Enforcement of the Educational Personnel Certification Act stipulates that physical education must be taken (two units), but it does not specify the content of the education or the method of taking it. The official opinion of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology states that “it is all right even if the subject may consist only of lectures or only of practical skills.” Many universities have different educational content and class styles, and this has also been confirmed from fact-finding surveys conducted by the Japanese Association of University Physical Education.

  The Course of Study suggested that the four areas of “safety and health,” “lifelong sports,” “club activity guidance,” and “health safety and physical education events” are necessary. However, an examination of the content of the four types of physical education textbook showed that the four areas listed in the Course of Study were insufficiently covered. In these textbooks, “lifelong sports” and “health” are mentioned, but “club activity guidance” and “health safety and physical education events” are not mentioned at all. As far as the textbook contents are concerned, there is no choice but to judge that the content that is needed from educational staff cannot be sufficiently learned.

  At Ehime University, classes have been exclusively set for students in the teacher training course with a curriculum that covers the four areas. Bunkyo University makes it easier for students in the teacher training course to take classes through an on-demand system. It was shown that improvements are possible by using these advanced curriculum examples as a reference.

  Generic competency is an important theme in educational policy and practices from primary to higher education in Japan as well as in many developed countries. This report aims to clarify the prospects and methods for developing and assessing generic competencies, using the model proposed by Minerva University (the Minerva Model) as a compass. Founded in 2012, Minerva University is well-known for its innovative education (e. g., no campus of its own with rotating 7 different cities around the world, fully active learning online, etc.). Minerva University has set the acquisition of practical knowledge as its top goal, embodied in the four core competencies (thinking critically, thinking creatively, communicating effectively, and interacting effectively) and about 80 HCs (habits of mind & foundational concepts), and has been making efforts to cultivate generic competencies through general and specialized education, formal education and co-curricular & extracurricular activities. Based on interviews with students, faculty members, and administrators at Minerva University, this report examined the design and practice of education for the cultivation of generic competencies in terms of objectives and assessment, online classes, co-curricular activities, and quality of teaching staff. The results showed that these factors are interrelated: for example, online classes enable the recruitment of highly qualified teaching staff regardless of their place of residence, and the co-curricular and extracurricular activities compensate for the lack of experience in online classes and contribute to community building. Thus, it became clear that the Minerva Model needs to be viewed as a whole, and that incorporating parts of it is not sufficient.

  Japanese universities are being required to make more autonomous management decisions than ever before. This roundtable was a discussion about the characteristics of administrative organizations which contribute highly toward autonomous management in universities from the perspective of making universities more autonomous. This idea has been developed in previous studies in the United States and other countries. The discussion expanded upon the definition of autonomy and current status at the participantsʼ workplaces, so it was not possible to verify the validity of the questionnaire survey items; however, it was confirmed that the notion of university autonomy manifests in diverse forms and a uniform discussion about it is difficult. Additionally, the validity of selecting interview survey targets was verified through seven keywords (faculty-staff collaboration, branding, admissions reform, high school-university connections, IR, administrative office, and staff).

  Pre-entrance education is becoming increasingly important as a transitional stage between high school and university education since the diversification of entrance examinations and university entrants. However, there has been insufficient discussion on what is required for this type of education and how it should be connected to university education, when considering the characteristics of universities, faculties, responsible organizations, and targeted students.

  In this paper, we report three cases of pre-entrance education programs by different responsible organizations and student target groups, analyzing the programs and their results. Positive evaluations in accordance to the objectives of the programs were obtained from all the cases. Additionally, the challenges in design of the program according to their characteristics were discussed and improvements proposed through follow-up verification.

  The positioning of pre-entrance education was discussed in relation to its connection with university education, taking into account the characteristics of responsible organizations and student target groups. We suggest that the connection be classified according to the two axes of “academic or life connections” and “explicit or implicit connections in the university curriculum and system.” Additionally, it would be effective to consider what elements to focus on, incorporate, or remove in the pre-entrance stage because of resource constraints and in light of the classification.

  Since the 2000s, there has been a movement in many countries around the world to reexamine the value of liberal arts within the context of contemporary university education.

  In Japan, liberal arts education was introduced to its higher education system as the centerpiece of post-World War II education reform. Under the title of “general education,” it was charged with the mission of fostering “citizens who will lead democratization,” complementing Japanese university education which had been traditionally organized around disciplinary education. However, when formal curricular requirements for general education, that were originally prescribed in the Standards for the Establishment of Universities, were removed in 1991, liberal arts education in Japan began to undergo a transformation, expanding its role to include the cultivation of a wide array of attributes such as judgment, creativity, and problem solving, etc.

  The purpose of the roundtable is to highlight the characteristics of Japanese liberal arts education and its contemporary issues through international comparison with liberal education in the United States, Australia, and France where liberal education has taken on unique forms and is continuing to evolve in individual ways. The roundtable consisted of presentations examining the historical context, societal background, current status and future trends of liberal arts education in those four countries followed by a discussion session which focused on sharpening the analytical framework of this comparative study and illuminating areas in need of further investigation.

  We conducted a research as part of “Assessment of Learning Outcomes in Online Higher Education,” a sub-theme of the JACUE-supported study “Possibilities for Higher Education in COVID-19: Subjects, Methods and Contents” (2021-23). After reviewing the results of our survey conducted on the US last year and previous studies done in Japan, we made (1) checking applicantsʼ aptitude, (2) student learning and learning support, and (3) educational outcomes the focus of this study. Our subjects were from educational courses primarily for adults: The Graduate School of Instructional Systems at Kumamoto University, a primarily-online curriculum inaugurated in 2006; and The Training Program of Practical Educator, a professional-school certificate program at The Graduate School of Social Design, which was established in 2020 primarily with online classes due to COVID-19.

  In June 2022, we presented a case report for each course at the JACUE annual conference. The case reports and corresponding Q&A sessions highlighted the following points. (1) Preparing a physical learning environment that includes online broadcasting equipment. With regard to the human learning environment and student learning support: (2) Instructorsʼ proficiency in teaching online; and (3) guaranteeing opportunities for face-to-face interaction between students and instructors and setting up shared housing or other environments conducive to students building networks among themselves. With regard to the assessment of educational outcomes: (4) Specifying the learning objectives and how they are assessed, and ensuring studentsʼ understanding thereof; (5) how to use formative assessments and conduct summative assessments; and (6) continued self-improvement after graduation and using that to maintain and improve educational outcomes.

  This roundtable was held as a workshop, which included topic presentations and group work. It aimed to examine the state of learning environments in The New Normal. The topic presentations reported the results of an interview survey on the management of learning spaces before and after the COVID-19 pandemic and introduced the translated version of the Learning Space Rating System (LSRS), an index for evaluating learning environments. The presentations also reported on the design of the Academic Links (ALs) learning environments at Kyoto Tachibana University, a learning space established during the COVID-19 pandemic, the status of its use, and the results of a trial evaluation of ALs using the LSRS. After the three presentations, the roundtable participants conducted group work on the ideal learning environment for the new era by applying the LSRS evaluation perspectives and discussed the usefulness of LSRS in Japanese universities.

  The discussion results showed that the LSRS is a useful evaluation system in the Japanese context. However, it was found that the inclusion perspective and stakeholder involvement were not highlighted in the group work. Further discussion is needed in this regard.

  In the future, we will continue to interview staff members involved in the management of learning environments and produce interviews that will include discussions of the three points discussed in this report. We will also develop LSRSs that are adapted to the learning environment of The New Normal and continue to study the designs of learning environments based on the perspectives of operators and learners.