The first purpose of this study was to reveal clinical usefulness of "classroom humor" through analyzing a real class based on the findings of previous studies, and the second purpose was to look at what "classroom humor" can contribute to the analysis of lessons. In this study it was possible to connect a real class with the findings of theoretical research on "classroom humor". This means that research on "classroom humor" must have clinical usefulness for developing classrooms and lessons. Furthermore, regarding the utility of "classroom humor" as a way to analyze classes, it can provide clues to understand "hidden contexts" (such as atmosphere, human relations, students' concentration, and so on). The present study successfully shows how effective "classroom humor" is for understanding and analyzing lessons as more dynamic activities.

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The purpose of this research is to show the effect of direct experience in childhood and science classes on junior high school students with regard to their intrinsic motivation for learning science. Assuming that direct experience in science classes is effective for junior high school students, the second purpose of this research is to identify the most appropriate time for encouraging intrinsic student motivation. Results from a questionnaire survey and observations of behavior revealed that direct experience in both childhood and science classes encouraged motivation among junior high school students. When we applied direct experience to the introductory and summative parts of learning, girls were particularly active in the latter case.

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'Education of Arithmetic for Life' (EAL) was a new movement in the 1920s, and is a remarkable body of educational philosophy and practices, which represent the process of modernization of arithmetic education in Japan. The whole image of EAL is, however, not clear even today. The objective of this paper is to understand its process and diversity, by focusing on Fujiwara Yasujiro, who was one of the experts. Through analysis from the perspective of "life", "mathematical thinking", and their relationship, it could be found that his ideas and practices can be divided into four stages. In the first stage, he was not clearly conscious of mathematical thinking in arithmetic; in the second stage, he grasped ideas of life and mathematical thinking separately: in the third stage, he grasped their relationship as interdependent, by introducing the idea of function; and finally, in the fourth stage, he placed mathematical thinking as a central idea in life and insisted that acquisition of mathematical thinking was fundamental to the development of life skills.

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The purposes of this study were to measure students' game performances and game aspects in basketball during elementary school physical education classes, using 3-dimensional photography analysis with the DLT method. Five physical education classes at two elementary schools (X elementary school and Y elementary school) were taken as the object of investigation in this study. The main results were as follows: 1) the average and standard deviation of the movement distance of all the elementary school children was 397.7±58.5m in a 5-minute game, and the average and standard deviation of the fastest movement speed was 4.70±0.43m/s; 2) the movement speed of all the elementary school children was less than 20% Max-movement- speed (it was moving at the rate of "walking") for about 50% of the game, and they sprinted (more than 80% Max-movement-speed) and stood for about 1% of the game respectively; 3) the game aspect was a three-step model changing between the offense-defense assignment type, the straight line and dumpling type, and the wide area and dumpling type.

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A longitudinal investigation of elementary school children' s absolute pitch identification abilities was carried out. 14 elementary school children were asked to identify 24 chromatic tones' names heard through headphones. Similar tests were repeated once-per-year from grade 1 until grade 4. The children were divided into four groups according to type of their response development. The 1st group (N=5) had the highest ability, followed by the 2nd group (N=3), the 3rd group (N=2), and the 4th group (N=4). The following findings were obtained: (1) It was not necessarily the case that the pitch identification ability developed with children's growth; (2) White key pitches were more precisely identified than black key pitches; and (3) No support was found that a black key pitch like F# or B b used in easy songs could be learned earlier. Strong individual differences were found in these results.

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This paper reveals the modification of the Music Appreciation Hour's early programs gaining the character of educational broadcasting, and focuses on the transition of the program format. The Music Appreciation Hour was a Damrosch music appreciation program and the first national School of the Air. The program format of the Music Appreciation Hour for the season of 1928-29 was based on Damrosch's concert for children. His concert for children was organized to present information of the same nature in each program. The program format for the season of 1928-29 had the same nature in all four series inasmuch as these programs focused on musical instruments. On the contrary, the subjects in the season for 1930-31 differed in each series. Therefore, each series was supposed to be listened to in sequence. The program for the season of 1930-31 led to the 'serial' nature (within each series) of educational broadcasting by changing their program format to deal with different subjects in each series.

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