The present study examined distinct characteristics of kanji representations in speakers of Korean (KLs) and Chinese (CLs) who were learning Japanese. Participants in the study were, in each native language, 12 persons at each of the following levels of Japanese kanji proficiency: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Other participants in the present study were persons learning Japanese who had no previous knowledge of kanji (NKLs; 12 at a beginning level of proficiency, and 15 each at intermediate and advanced levels). Participants were asked to write as many kanji as possible in 15 minutes, and then asked about the cues they used to retrieve kanji from their memory. The results suggested that Chinese whose proficiency was advanced used more semantic cues than did Chinese whose kanji proficiency was at a beginning or intermediate level, whereas Koreans at all levels of proficiency used semantic cues. This suggests that kanji proficiency has no effect on the accessibility of the links between the conceptual representations and the related lexical representations in second-language acquisition for Koreans learning Japanese. It was also found that Koreans used kanji components that were smaller than radicals at the same rate as the participants who had no previous knowledge of kanji. These latter participants used smaller components more frequently than did Japanese speakers (N=12; Ito & Wada, 1999a). These findings suggest that both Koreans and persons with no previous knowledge of kanji pay attention to the smaller components when they are memorizing kanji.

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The present study examined Japanese and Chinese children's mathematical thinking when solving 2 types of problems. Japanese and Chinese public-school sixth graders (Japanese, N=273; Chinese, N=359) solved computation problems and word problems, which were directly related to instructional materials used in their schools. They also solved problems involving making up stories, fraction-quantification problems, and comparison and justification problems, so that their conceptual understanding could be assessed. On overall performance on computation and word problems, the Chinese children scored higher than the Japanese, whereas the differences were relatively small between the children in the 2 countries in their performance on the problems requiring conceptual understanding. Analysis of the children's thinking processes when solving the conceptual problems suggested that the Chinese children preferred to use strategies related to numerical information in the problems and to apply previously learned formulae, whereas, although the Japanese children tried to consider the meaning of the problems, their verbal expression was not sufficient for that. The relationship between the children's mathematical thinking and instructional materials and methods used in their countries was discussed.

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The present study investigated developmental characteristics of multidimensional self-concept in midlife. Participants were 1,006 individuals, 30 to 65 years old. Examination of developmental differences suggested that midlife consists of 2 stages: early and late. Late midlife especially showed significant differences compared to early and pre-midlife in terms of high self-esteem, high evaluation of self, and low concern with self. When the interaction between concern and evaluation in multiple domains of the self was examined, significant interactions were found in the following domains in the stages noted: social and inner self of early midlife males, inner self of early midlife females, and social self of pre-midlife females. Furthermore, those domains of self that showed significant interactions were found to be those at the beginning of midlifespecific changes, when people are likely to be introspective or experience conflicts. The results also suggested that people in early and pre-midlife are at risk for an unstable self-esteem when they have low concern with a domain of self that reflects specific experiences in midlife.

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Participants (115 monozygotic pairs of twins, 32 dizygotic pairs, and 881 non-twin students) took the Tanaka B Intelligence Test (New Edition) when in junior high school and high school. The data were analyzed by a type of structural equation model, a genetic ACE (Additive genetic, Common environment, non-shared Environment) model, combined with a model for analyzing longitudinal data. Intelligence scores (IS) and scores on 7 sub-tests were examined. Non-shared environment accounted for a considerable portion of the variance in each score, at both the junior high and high school levels.

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The present study investigated how the daily activities of contemporary college students function as activities related to their self-development. Analysis of questionnaire responses of 141 college students revealed the following results: (1) A relationship was found between the affirmative evaluation of self-development activities and ego identity. This result suggests that internal identity concepts, such as identity feeling, are formed and achieved in relation to an affirmative evaluation of outward activities (self-development).(2) Fulfillment and self-acceptance were shown to be supported by a development-oriented context in students' leisure-time activities and. personal relations, and by a living-oriented context in students' lifestyles. Also, orientation to self-goals was supported by a future-perspectives context in the students' class/lecture activities, and a development-oriented context in students' self-improvement activities. It was concluded that the content of self-development activities has different functions, depending on the context.

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The purpose of the present study was to examine how teachers can influence both the classroom and the atmosphere of the classroom effectively. Near the end of the first term of the school year, and again near the end of the final term, students in the upper grades of an elementary school (107 fourth graders, 114 fifth graders, and 92 sixth graders) were questioned about their cognition of a teacher and the classroom atmosphere. Factor analysis enabled extraction of factors of the students' cognition of a teacher, including acceptance and affinity, confidence and objectivity, fear, punishment, and robustness, and, as factors of classroom atmosphere, mutual respect among the students, discipline, willingness, enjoyment, and resistance. Multiple regression analysis suggested that the factors strongly related to classroom atmosphere were acceptance and affinity, and confidence and objectivity. The influence of the acceptance and affinity factor on the 2 classroom atmosphere factors of willingness and enjoyment was clear in the data from the end of the first term. In contrast, at the end of the first term, the factor of confidence and objectivity showed no relation to any of the atmosphere factors. The results from the end of the final term, however, strongly suggested that, at that time, confidence and objectivity had a large positive influence on mutual respect among the students, and a large negative influence on resistance.

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The purpose of the present study was to examine the relation between test anxiety, self-efficacy, self-regulated learning, and test performance, in order to be able to develop methods for remedial intervention. The hypotheses were as follows: (1) self-regulated learning has a direct effect on test performance,(2) self-regulated learning influences test performance indirectly via constructs concerning test anxiety, and (3) self-regulated learning influences test performance indirectly via constructs concerning self-efficacy. Participants in the study were 4^th graders (37 boys, 45 girls). Data were collected from the students' performance on an actual classroom arithmetic examination. The relation between the variables was investigated by means of structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicated that self-regulated learning did not have a direct effect on test performance nor an indirect effect via constructs concerning test anxiety, but influenced test performance indirectly via constructs concerning self-efficacy.

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The present study explored the influence of disabling condition, interpersonal situation, and personal characteristics on self-efficacy expectations and attitudes regarding interactions with students with disabilities. University students without disabilities (N=658) completed 4 parallel versions of 4 subscales of selfefficacy expectations and attitudes. Each version specified a different disabling condition, blindness, deafness, use of a wheelchair, or health impairment, in the preamble to 4 subscales: friendship, self-assertiveness, integrated education, and embarrassing interaction. Factor analyses yielded 3 factors common to the 4 disabling conditions. The factors were named “Embarrassing Relationship,” “Self-Assertiveness,” and “Integrated Education.” Analyses of the relationships of 3 personal characteristics (interest in persons with disabilities, gender, and volunteer experience) to the scores obtained from the 3 factors suggested that all 3 of those personal characteristics were related to the “Embarrassing Relationship” factor scores, and that gender was related to the “Self-Assertiveness” factor score. However, no personal characteristic was found to be related to the “Integrated Education” factor score. Further analysis using ANOVA revealed that personal characteristics significantly influenced the subscales of friendship and self-assertiveness, whereas no significant main effect emerged for the integrated education subscale.

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The purpose of the present study was to examine factors affecting teachers' recognition of social support from their principal, and to investigate the effect of those factors on the teachers' stress responses. Public school teachers in Japan (N=329) were asked to complete the Perceived Social Support Scale, the Perceived Social Power Scale, the Self-Empowerment Index, the Communication with the Principal Scale, and the Stress Response Scale. The teachers' recognition of principals' power, the teachers' empowerment, and communication with the principals had different effects on instrumental support and emotional support as perceived by the teachers. Teachers' recognition of emotional support from their principal, and the teachers' self-assertion, including empowerment, reduced the teachers' stress response. The teachers' recognition of emotional support from their principal emerged from the teachers' communication with the principal, the teachers' self-assertion, and the principals' expert power, reward power, and referent power.

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The present study was aimed at providing suggestions as to how specific support should be provided to teachers who have little or no experience in writing individualized education plans. A sixth-grade teacher who had one child with learning disabilities in her class participated in a support program designed especially for such teachers. The teacher support program for writing the plans included presenting instructional guidelines and accommodations for the child, holding monthly meetings, giving guidance on writing the plans, and presenting formats of the plans. After experiencing these supports, conscious and practical improvements were shown by the teacher, such as grasping the factors relating to academic failure, and preparing materials/methods suited to the child. Also, the sections in the plan on “present level of performance,”“objectives” and “materials/methods,” which had initially been disjointed, gradually fused together in the form of a cycle. It seemed that the teacher rated the child's achievement level less negatively, due to changes in the child's objectives and her materials/methods, and gave more consideration to the child's characteristics.

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The purpose of the present study was to investigate how cooperative knowledge construction proceeds, and why systematic changes in argumentation style occur during cooperative discussion. The setting was 4 lessons in a science class participants were the 25 fourth graders (8 boys, 17 girls) in that class. The lessons were designed following an experimental strategy derived from the Bridging Analogies Strategy (Clement, 1993), based on cooperative learning by verbalization activity generated from the students' prior knowledge. Questions identified during interpretation were verified in experimental sessions and observation sessions. Results of a coding analysis showed that (1) an oscillation in argumentation style between an individuation process and an integration process appeared to be significant for cooperative knowledge construction, and (2) differences among peers in interpretation of fundamental natural concepts, and mediating artifacts that induced students to understand scientific phenomena (such as analogies and visibility), generated dialogue that functioned as operational transacts and caused systematic change in the children's argumentation styles.

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Determinations of pitch can be based on either of 2 attributes of a tone: its chroma, a quality shared by all notes described by a particular letter (e. g., C, D, E), and its height, the position of one note relative to others. Absolute pitch is the ability to identify a note based on its chroma. There is a critical period for the acquistion of absolute pitch. Although this skill can be achieved through appropriate training, it has been observed that children over the age of 6 find it difficult to acquire absolute pitch, and this difficulty increases with age. Our research institute has been investigating the relationship of age to the development of absolute pitch in children. The present experiment reports results from training 8 children (four 2-year-olds and four 5-year-olds). The younger children identified notes based on their chroma, whereas the older children focused mainly on the notes' height. This tendency to shift from an emphasis on chroma to one on height increased with increasing age, thereby making the acquisition of absolute pitch more difficult.

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