Oda's Fuzzy-set Concurrent Rating (FCR) method was developed to solve some of the inherent problems in conventional rating methods. The present study examines an L2 learning strategy inventory by comparing the results of two survey administrations on the same subjects, one using a conventional rating method and the other the FCR method. One hundred and twenty-four university students responded to the two forms of a questionnaire with the same strategy inventory. When the one employing the conventional method was administered, think-aloud protocols of all the participants were also obtained through individual recording equipment in a language laboratory. The analysis of 'the degree of contradiction', one of the indexes yielded by the FCR method, suggested that some of the inventory items are incomprehensible or irrelevant to the subjects. The inappropriateness of those inventory items was supported by the result of the verbal protocol analysis. Itshowed that the subjects found it difficult to respond to the items, mainly due to the existence of unfamiliar expressions involved in the wording or irrelevancy of the items to their L2 learning environments. Through this experiment, the usefulness of the FCR method as a means of item analysis was indicated.

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In teaching energy conversion in technology education classes on mechanics there are several questions to be solved. They are, "What should the students learn about them?" and "How do they learn them?" Addressing the former question, the subject to be learned was established as forming the concepts of an energy conversion process on supplying mechanical power into machines. As for the latter question, a 'learning method' was designed, which consisted of two elements-experimental observation of energy conversions and the teaching plan. The purpose of this study was to examine the learning method using "concept mapping", which represents the learner's concepts, and by using a questionnaire, which investigated interests in the learning and in making the concept maps. As a result, the following was obtained. The students who learned by the 'learning method' acquired more concepts about energy conversions than did the students who learned by 'lecture'. And the students who learned by the 'learning method' had more motivation toward the learning, and showed more interest about its contents such as 'machines' and 'energy'. Therefore, the 'learning method' proved effective in forming their concepts of energy conversion process and in increasing their interests in the learning.

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In the information-oriented society, children and students have been spending more time interacting with computer systems. In order to reduce their technostress and to raise morale for learning, the authors attempted to display faces on the computer display. Fuzzy reasoning was applied to selecting the face which expressed emotions caused by several situations. Faces with three levels of brow deflection and three levels of mouth deflection were used to construct the fuzzy reasoning model in this study. The usefulness of the fuzzy reasoning model for selecting the faces through an experiment using a computer game as an example of the interaction between the computer and the user was discussed.

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