THE JAPANESE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Online ISSN : 2187-5278
Print ISSN : 0387-3161
ISSN-L : 0387-3161
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Volume 83, Issue 1
Displaying 1-22 of 22 articles from this issue
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  • The Scientific Course at Tokyo Educational Museum: Focusing on the “Teaching Method of Arithmetic”
    Asami TAKADA
    2016 Volume 83 Issue 1 Pages 1-12
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: June 27, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11555/kyoiku.83.1_1
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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     This paper examines the historical significance of the Scientific Course which Tokyo Educational Museum offered for in-service teachers in the 1880s.
     From the 1880s onward, several courses were held all over the country in order to improve the qualifications of teachers. The Scientific Course in Tokyo Educational Museum was one such example. It had four characteristics-namely, that it was not compulsory, that it applied to all teachers, its attention to course hours and its science-specific subjects.
     Relevant previous studies have referred to the historical materials written by course planners, such as policy documents and regulations. This paper, by contrast, views the Scientific Course from the perspective of the participants. Specifically, this paper considers what Henmi Kotaro, a teacher working in a private school in Tokyo, learnt from Noguchi Yasuoki's course on the “Teaching Method of Arithmetic” and how Kotaro utilized the knowledge in his own lessons. Referring to his discourse plans and teaching plans, it appears that he was influenced by the theoretical arithmetic on which Noguchi lectured, so that he adopted Noguchi’s theory into his lessons. It may be said that this resulted from the course in light of Kotaro’s learning history. Previous studies have emphasized that Tokyo Educational Museum contributed to the spread of the hardware side of education by collecting, exhibiting and lending instructional equipment. However, this paper demonstrates that the museum influenced the software side of education to some extent through the Scientific Course.
     At that time, although Tokyo Prefecture also held a course for teachers, it covered only teachers in public elementary schools at first. However, it was the many teachers in private schools who underpinned education in Tokyo; furthermore, most of them were uncertified. Thereby, the problem of improving their qualifications still existed. Tokyo Educational Museum provided them with an important opportunity to learn. However, the number of participants in the Scientific Course started to decline when Tokyo Prefecture developed a course system for teachers working in private schools in 1887. Therefore, it may be concluded that the Scientific Course had profound significance in complementing the incomplete system of courses for in-service teachers in Tokyo. On the other hand, we may say that the Scientific Course continued to have important implications for improving the lessons of certified teachers like Kotaro, because the course enabled them to learn natural science technically in a short period of time.
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  • School Environment and Gender Gap in Academic Self-Concepts
    Kazuhisa FURUTA
    2016 Volume 83 Issue 1 Pages 13-25
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: June 27, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11555/kyoiku.83.1_13
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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     Gender gaps in education have recently been changing, but remain substantial and persistent. While women have been attaining more and more equal levels of education with men, gender segregation by field of study is persistent and still high. To investigate these phenomena, this paper examines gender differences in mathematical and scientific academic achievements and self-concepts among Japanese high school students. Data for this study comes from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted by OECD in 2003 and 2006, which are nationally representative samples from 15-year-old students. The effects of individual attributes and school environment on students’ academic self-concepts are estimated by applying a hierarchical linear model. The main findings are as follows.
     First, academic self-concepts differ greatly by gender, although women on average have equal mathematical and scientific test scores with men. Gender gap in these self-concepts is substantial and women have lower academic self-concepts than men after controlling for the test scores. Second, students’ relative advantage in reading is negatively associated with science and math self-concepts. This means that students compare their math and science achievement with reading or other subjects’ achievement and assess their “comparative advantage”. Third, student background directly affects academic self-concept even after controlling for the test scores. For example, students with a parent in a science-related occupation tend to have a higher science academic self-concept than those without. This result implies that parents’ science-related occupations are role models for their children and encourages motivation and interests for science study.
     In addition to these individual factors, school population characteristics are associated with academic self-concepts. Fourth, the school average test score is negatively associated with student academic self-concepts after controlling for student level achievement. This result is in line with the “Big-Fish-Little-Pond-Effect (BFLPE)” proposed by H. W. Marsh. Fifth, the gender composition of schools has an effect on students’ academic self-concepts in addition to student gender. In particular, girls who attend high schools with a student body roughly equally divided between boys and girls have lower math and science self-concepts. This suggests that interaction between girls and boys in daily school life contributes to the formation of gender stereotype in academic subjects. Results confirmed that not only students’ achievement but also gender, social background and school characteristics have an effect on the formation of academic self-concepts.
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