The purpose of this study is to construct a scale to measure the healing effect and the stress in learning “technology of materials and their processing” within technology education, and to examine its connection with students’ learning motivation. The survey was conducted on 298 junior high school students by using items prepared based on the “category of healing effect and stress occurred in technological activities” and Scale of student motivation in technology education. As a result, we developed a scale to measure healing effect and stress in technological activities. The scale consisted of 3 factors: “healing effect”, “process-derived stress”, and “apathy-derived stress”. As a result of examination about relationship between each factor and learning motivation, it was suggested that students’ motivation for learning was increased when they felt “healing effect”. On the other hand, it was suggested that students’ motivation for learning was reduced when they felt “apathy-derived stress” occurred by such consciousness as “lethargic” and “indifference”. However, it was suggested that students’ motivation for learning was increased when they felt “processderived stress” occurred by such onsciousness as “regret to failure” and “feeling of difficulties and anxiety”.

View full abstract

Although Content and Language Integrated Learning and Content-based Instruction (CBI) are recently paid more attention to under the circumstances where English classes are taught in English at senior high schools, it appears that English language education courses are not taught in English at many universities that train future English teachers at secondary schools. This paper reports an exploratory study concerning university students’ perceptions of a CBI course on English language education. This course (n = 70) was taught as mandatory for obtaining the license for teaching English at secondary schools, in the second semester in 2013. It aimed to develop students’ basic knowledge about English language education, and to improve their English proficiencies. At the end of this course, a survey was taken to investigate the students’ perceptions of the CBI course with a questionnaire consisted of 39 6-point Likert questions. From these question items three factors were extracted concerning CBI on English language education: effective, approving, and English use factors. These factors were examined with ANOVAs and regression analyses. The results were: (a) content understanding affected the three factors; (b) English proficiency affected the second factor; (c) future job prospect affected none of the factors; and (d) none of the factors significantly contributed to content students’ understanding, the second factor showing a contributing tendency toward English proficiency.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate what factor affects the environment-conscious behavior in eating habits of junior high school students.
After teaching about food and environment in a problem-solving way, the questionnaire survey revealed that the source of information about environmental problems, mode of learning experience at school, their mothers’ environment-conscious behavior, conversation with family, and housework experience, had some effects on students’ behaviors.
The results were as follows;
1) As a result of factor analysis, two factors, were identified in the students’ environment-conscious behaviors. The first factor was concerned with behaviors that were easy to practice in their daily lives, and the second was behaviors on which global point of views are needed. They were called “daily factor” and “global factor” respectively.
2) “Daily factor” behaviors were related to the boys’ learning experience in school, their conversation with family, and the housework experiences of boys.
3) “Global factor” behaviors were related to learning experiences at school, mothers’ environment-conscious behavior toward boys, conversations with family, and housework experiences of boys. In particular, when having family conversations, in which the mother was taught by her child, the possibility was suggested that family conversation greatly affects mothers’ environment-conscious “global factor” behaviors.
In conclusion, a development model of environment-conscious behavior was suggested. The students’ learning experiences at school influenced their mothers’ experiences via conversation with family.
These results indicated the importance of home economics education to encourage environment-conscious behavior of junior high school students.

View full abstract

We conducted a questionnaire survey on 202 elementary school teachers who played a leading role in PE, to clarify at what stage of their carriers and by what experience they improved their professional abilities in PE. We analyzed the data of the questionnaire aiming to examine the contextual factors that facilitated their professional development and the timing at which these factors worked effectively.
This analysis revealed the following three points. 1) Leading teachers learned from senior teachers and the PE chief until the fifth year of their carrier, and they learned through guiding young teachers from the 16th year onward. 2) It was important to observe senior teachers’ PE classes until the fifth year, to carry out experimental classes on a prefectural, regional, and/or national scale until the 15th year, and to present their lesson studies in teachers’ conference from the 11th year onward. 3) Leading teachers often became PE chiefs by the fifth year, and had many opportunities to learn outside their own schools by being part of external PE organizations from the sixth year onward. They developed their carriers in the local networks by becoming school principals or supervisors in local governments from the 21st year onward.

View full abstract

The aim of this article is to reveal the logic of learning historical concepts in the authentic historical learning. This article focused on the teaching practice of B. A. Lesh who taught high school U.S. history in Maryland State, U.S. Lesh focused on six historical concepts in his classes. To reveal the logic of learning historical concepts in authentic historical learning, this article analyzed two lesson practices. First lesson practice was “Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal”, which focuses on learning the concept of “text, context, subtext”. The other was “The Truman-MacArthur Debate”, which focuses on learning the concept of “Historical Empathy”. Results revealed three points of significance. First, students needed to continuously use the concept of “text, context, subtext” in reading historical sources. Second, students had to familiarize themselves with historical concepts. Third, students needed to interpret history by using historical concepts synthetically.

View full abstract

The effects of “co-productive learning” on the development of problem solving skills were examined in this case study. In the SSH seminar in 2014 where 38 high school students at the first grade were involved, small group work called “co-productive learning” was implemented as an intervention in order to solve the problems creatively. The results indicated that in comparison of the pre- and post- tests, performances on problem solving and qualitative levels of thinking strategies including knowledge application skills, such as causal reasoning, were significantly improved. Thus, it could be concluded that developing the problem solving skills could be possible by means of the “co-productive learning”.

View full abstract

This study examined the consistency of historical learning in primary and secondary school education in Germany through the analysis of textbooks that focused on historical consciousness.
　　 The study first clarified the characteristic pattern of historical consciousness as to how hit was developed at each educational stage through an analysis of the textbooks and then examined the sequential progress in the building of such consciousness. It revealed that historical consciousness is developed continually in a way that children’s narratives on history were progressively elaborated through interrelating both historical and social dimensions in the consciousness.
　　 The study indicated that the following could be applied to historical learning in Japan: (1) the goal of historical learning, i.e., fostering historical consciousness, would make it possible to ensure consistency in the study content; (2) historical consciousness as a learning goal had to be a pedagogical theory; and (3) the aim unique to historical learning was an effective means of enabling a consistency across primary and secondary school education.

View full abstract

In addition to elucidating the establishment and details of specialized musical education within Italy’s middle school education system, this paper clarified the role and positioning of specialized musical educational institutions in Italy. The aim of this paper is to explore a part of new characteristics of music education in Italy. From the background of establishment, while the role of conservatory school of music was to train professionals, the role of general educational institutions seemed to prioritize personal development. Middle school music classes were in an intermediate position, and while their objective was students’ personal development, as in general educational institutions, the method they employed was music, and attempted to provide an education that linked knowledge with technique. In this educational institution, the core of school education was music education. This is characteristic of one of the roles of school education.

View full abstract

In this study, an analysis of the classroom discourse was performed in order to identify the changes in teaching actions over the years in interactive science lessons. In the study, the lessons of the same teacher were analyzed for the teaching actions in order to clarify the differences in teaching experience at the interval of 3 years. As a result, it was demonstrated that, as teaching experience was accumulated, the teaching actions of revoicing and annotating were increased, and speeches unrelated to the lessons were reduced.

View full abstract