In order to improve the quality of mathematics education, it is important to carry out research on the teaching materials and the teaching methods. It is perhaps even more important to understand the consciousness of students of mathematics. The purpose of this research is to examine the difference in consciousness toward mathematics between junior high school students and high school students. This research is based on a series of studies entitled "Research on Students' Belief, Goal and Attitude on Mathematics" that was carried out in Fukuyama junior and senior high school attached to Hiroshima university from 1995 to 1997. As a result of the research, the following differences in consciousness concerning creativity and communication with other students between junior and senior high school students became clear. ・Though high school students think that "Mathematics is free and it has possibilities.", junior high school students think that "Mathematics is a set of problems to be solved." ・Though junior high school students think that mathematical ability improves by solving many problems, high school students think that it improves by creative learning. ・Though junior high school students feel happy solving problems, high school students feel happy learning mathematics expansively. ・Both junior and senior high school students feel happy learning mathematics when there is good communication between students. These results suggest that we should consider the teaching of mathematics creatively and develop mathematics as an important subject so that students can reach upper grade.

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This paper will focus on analysing the personality inclination of the leading characters as presented in the National Language text books of the two countries. The objective is to highlight the key differences of the National Language story teaching of the two countries particularly in the area of teaching material selection. Major differences exist in the ratio of stories included between realism and fantasy, the ages of the leading characters and their personality inclination. In the final analysis this Study confirms the importance of incorporating the following points in the teaching of National Language stories: ・The type of personal images of the leading characters presented to the students; ・The type of talents to be developed and; ・The ways to influence and guide the students.

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The purpose of this paper is to make clear characteristics of the cultural course developed in SEITOKU elementary school in Tottori Prefecture during the new teaching in the Taisho era. The main findings are as follows; 1) A cultural course was a special establishment subject which lasted for six years of elementary school. It was carried out as a class of Japanese for one hour per week. 2) Three textbooks which the teachers of SEITOKU elementary school made were used in the class. 3) The reality of the cultural course was development-like one's hometown cultural environment learning. But it was oriented toward cultural synthetic environment learning from the viewpoint of ideology.

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The present paper reports on a construct validation study of English language tests used as a component of entrance examinations in Aichi Gakuin University (AGU). The 1999 test version of the English language was selected and divided into the four subtests in order to carry out an internal correlation study which was utilized in Alderson, Clapham, & Wall (1995). The data was gathered from 157 students in AGU. The results indicated that each subtest was somewhat valid because the score of each subtest contributed to the total test score of the English language test. However, the correlation between each pair of subtests was a little higher than expected, which implied the tendency for each subtest to measure the same trait. The implications of the results for further improvement of English language tests in AGU entrance examinations are also discussed.

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The purpose of this paper is to show how the environment of Kindergarten education can enhance educational continuation to elementary school. First we clarify the necessity of Kindergarten education connecting with Life Environment Studies in elementary school, by showing the coordination and the relationships between the guidelines of Kindergarten and the course of study of elementary school. In this paper, we focus on illustrated books, in which children are presented with general ideas of Life Environment Studies. We checked the illustrated books whose pictures and words are similar to those in the textbooks of Life Environment Studies and are suited to the aim (6) of the course of study.

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The researcher took up the remodeling of the "Four-wheel Minicar" as introductory learning in the class of producing robots in the field of Machinery in Industrial Arts, and studied the outcome of this learning in comparison with introductory learning by video-viewing. The degrees of students' displays of inventiveness were examined and analysed under the different methods of introductory learning, as were their differing reactions in sentiments and expectations, in two classes of senior students. As a consequence, in the introductory class in which "Four-wheel Minicars" were used, it is possible to form the stages where students can show their inventiveness. Through their personal activities, they were temporarily more pleasantly motivated towards the learning. It turned out, however, that there is no influence exerted on the evaluation of students' learning situations according to the check points in the process of two-school-hour introductory learning. Furthermore, it became clear that giving the playful element some priority has made students less interested in the content of their learning thereafter.

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In this study, roles that spontaneously arose within groups in a science lab class were analyzed. In addition, by focusing on a group containing a non-participant, it was clarified how the students learned in cooperation with other members of the group. In the first part of the study, the students were free to form their own groups. As a result, most groups consisted of four students and did not include non-participants. The second part of the study looked at how cooperative learning was conducted in groups of two to four students. We found that, in four-student groups, the number of groups containing non-participants increased as the class proceeded. In the third part, a discussion which required the participation of all students was introduced. It was found that, in four-student groups, the number of groups containing non-participants decreased as the class proceeded.

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In Home Economics, the theme that men and women build life styles taking a view of home life and vocational life is important. In recent years, the introduction of career education has been proposed and the career education model has been constructed by Japanese educators. However they did not refer to career education in school subjects. After the analysis of American Home Economics textbooks, the authors of books regarded career to have a broader meaning than occupation or vocation, and realized that career involves a view of home, vocational and community life. The textbooks aimed at nurturing the ability of self-understanding, human relations, information gathering and applying, decision making and career planning, relating to concrete occupations. With reference to the textbooks, the researcher constructed a career education model and examined the possibility of career education in Home Economics. Programs of teaching remain to be developed and practiced from the view point of career guidance and sogo-gakushu.

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The purpose of this study is to make clear the influence of exercise in physical education classes on the mental function and activity in the next class. The method was as follows. The exercise-induced cerebral activation, which was estimated from the performance of simple calculation (adding), was used as the index for the research. Groups of subjects were given a physical exercise class, the degrees of the intensity of which were controlled for each group in advance. Then, the effect of the physical education class was analyzed in terms of the relationship between the exercise intensity and the levels of exercise-induced cerebral activation. (1) The relation between the intensity of physical exercise and the level of exercise-induced cerebral activation took the form of an inverted U shaped curve. The level of exercise-induced cerebral activation was highest when children's belief about for the intensity of physical exercise was at level III (feeling neither not hard nor comfortable). (2) In the class after the physical education at level III, children reported being were most keen and able to concentrate most on learning. So it is considered that the physical education at level III has a good effect on the next class. (3) The relation between the intensity of physical education and the level of exercise-induced cerebral activation varied according to the student's academic record. As the academic record became worse, the level of exercise-induced cerebral activation and the willingness to learn were apt to be influenced more easily. (4) The amount of physical exercise, the level of physical fitness and the academic record were regard as factors which influenced the relation between the intensity of physical exercise and the level of exercise-induced cerebral activation.

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