世論 What Japan Thinks

I’m not really up on the issues myself regarding national testing, but I am against the whole culture of testing in Japan. I am all for publishing the results of regular examinations, but not tests for the sake of tests. However, I would appear to be very much in the minority according to the results of this survey into national educational level testing, conducted by goo Research in conjunction with the Mainichi Shimbun.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 19th of October 2008 1,075 mmbers of the goo Research monitor group aged twenty or older completed a private online questionnaire. No further demographics information was provided.

I’m a bit confused in Q1 why there is an answer “both the school and local authority level”, as it is a trivial task to take the school results and sum them up by area. Also, Q1SQ1 and Q1SQ2 should really be multiple choice questions and there are no “don’t knows”, so I suspect there has been some post-processing of the results for presentation.
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I’m gobsmacked that a smack in the gob is considered acceptable corporal punishment by about three in five Japanese! This is just one result from a genuinely shocking survey on corporal punishment.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of June 2008 467 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a pirvate internet-based questionnaire. 52% of the sample were male, 13.9% in their twenties, 46.0% in their thirties, 31.9% in their forties, and 8.1% of other ages.

I hope I’m not making a huge mistake with the translation here, as the results are so counter-intuitive to my western mind. In Q4, I think the question is what people think is appropriate as a means of punishment for students. Any advice on the correctness or otherwise of this assumption is most welcome. I’m also a bit shakey on Q2.

The Japanese phrase used for corporal punishment in this survey is 愛のムチ, ai no muchi, which translated as “tough love”. According to Japanese law I believe it is banned in school, although according to many people I know who work in Japanese schools it is very much alive and kicking.
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I’ve got a couple of Nintendo DS learning games, but I don’t have a DS to play them on, but that’s another story. Today’s story is a survey from goo Research, in conjuction with the Research Institute for Digital Media and Content at Keio University into game machine and computer-based self-study.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 25th of February 2008 (although the results were only posted on the 17th of June) 1,063 members of the goo Research consumer monitor group in employement completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The male:female split was 50:50, with the extra odd person being male. The age range is not noted, however. By employment status, 2.9% were senior management, 8.8% middle management, 10.2% lower management, 27.2% ordinary employees, 8.0% contract or dispatch employees, 13.7% part-time or temporary, 26.0% students, and 3.2% others.

At work we have various e-learning courses available that vary from free to quite expensive, with the company usually paying half of the fees, as long as you sit the exams at the end or complete most of the coursework, etc. I’m not sure how many people actually use the facilities though!

Here the term e-learning means online training on either the internet or intranet.
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Here’s another quick but fun survey from goo Ranking for your Sunday enjoyment; what did you find surprising when you entered further education.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of February 2008 1,052 people from the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% were female, 6.4% in their teens, 15.7% in their twenties, 31.0% in their thirties, 26.6% in their forties, 11.2% in their fifties, and 9.1% aged sixty or over. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

When I started uni in Scotland, I think the most surprising thing I realised was that women… I’d better not finish that one as my wife and mother read my blog!
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goo Research, in conjunction with All About Japan recently conducted a survey into the matter of young women and studying.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 31st of March 2008 1,052 female members of the goo Research monitor panel aged between 25 and 44 and who lived in Tokyo or the three surrounding prefectures completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 25.3% were between 25 and 29 years, old, 24.8% between 30 and 34, 24.4% between 35 and 39, and 25.5% between 40 and 44. 66.6% were married.

Note that studying is a rather broad heading here, covering anything with an instructor involved. Also, only training started from age 20 or older is considered; doing ballet as a kid doesn’t count.

The one thing I’m studying, or at least should be studying, is kanji; I hope to sit the test for the next level in October. The one thing I want to learn is the game of go. When I was a kid I played it, but it would be nice to get formal lessons from somewhere.

I am also learning how to write headlines for blog posts that attract clicks…
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Here’s another quickie survey today (sorry, a bit busy these days to concentrate on long translations!), again reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh into the matter of e-learning.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 31st of March 2008 300 members of the Marsh internet monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. The sexes were split 50:50, and by age 20.0% were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 13.3% in their fifties, and 6.7% aged sixty or older.

I once tried an internet site that offered Kanji Kentei training, but I didn’t really enjoy it much, and anyway now there’s Nintendo DS software for kanji practice for round about the same price as three months on the web site, why bother? Talking of the DS, looking at the results below it seems that e-learning here means internet-delivered contents, not software.
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This is a rather short but still interesting survey from goo Research, conducted in conjunction with the Mainichi Shimbun, into the proposed reforms to the national curriculum, particularly with regard to elementary school education.

Demographics

Over the 29th of February and the 1st of March 2008 1,069 members of the goo Research online monitor group aged 20 or older were randomly-selected and completed a private internet-based questionnaire. More detailed demographics were not given.

Some of the reforms proposed are outlined in this article from the Japan Times.

These changes are to address the drop in academic level in international tests (or is it that other countries are improving, or a mix of both?) by studying more. Looking at the league leader Finland, it can be seen that there are neither long school hours nor much pressure, whereas Japan’s solution seems to be adding more hours and more pressures. I’ve seen television programmes investigating Japanese education, and the problem teachers identify is too much overtime for them to be able to prepare for lessons or to be at their best when teaching. Overtime has indeed steadily increased over the decades, so more hours in classes and a new curriculum to learn is not going to fix that.

Most foreigners I know who teach in schools also highlight the lack of classroom dicipline and too many events (sports day, culture days, etc), the preparation for which disrupt teaching schedules for both teachers and students.

The teaching of pi equals three is actually true to a certain extent. In the current guidelines, teachers should use 3.14, but in certain circumstances (what circumstances, the curriculum guidelines do not say) three may be used.
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One popular survey from last year was a survey into what Japan thinks of OpenCourseWare, freely available university material. Recently, goo Research released the results of their second annual survey into these matters, namely making university lectures publicly available.

Demographics

The fieldwork for this survey was conducted between the 13th and 19th of December 2007, with 1,000 members of the goo Research monitor group completing a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, with 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% aged fifty or older. By educational history, 7.1% had only completed middle school (although given that 20.0% were in their teens, some may still be in high school), 27.5% high school, 10.8% vocational or other types of secondary schooling, 9.5% junior two-year college, 25.6% university arts course, 12.8% university science, 1.2% university medical or pharmacutical, 3.4% post-graduate or business school, 0.4% overseas university or post-graduate, and 1.2% other.

OpenCourseWare is the term coined to describe this phemonenom, pioneered in the USA by MIT’s OpenCourseWare project. In Japan there is the Japan OpenCourseWare Consortium, JOCW, based at Keio University.

Note that since the last survey it appears that Tokyo Geijutsu University and Hitotsubashi University have stopped offering OpenCourseWare, but Doshisha University, Ritsumeikan University, Kansai University, Kyoto Seika University, and Kagawa Education Institute of Nutrition have started.
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I am always amazed at quite how high the desire to learn English is in Japan, as despite at least 5 years in school ability levels are pretty atrocious on the whole, and even given Nova’s demise there seems to be no fall-off in the popularity of study. This recent poll conducted by goo Research in conjuction with the Yomiuri Shimbun as part of their 13th Topi-Q Net survey into the matter of English showed youth keen to learn more.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 25th of December 2007 549 young members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sex ratio was reported as 1:1 male to female, but there obviously was one odd person left over. The ages of the respondents ranged between teens to thirties, although the exact split is not reported. 40% of the sample were students in either secondary or tertiary education, 28% were full-time employees, and 12% homemakers, with the other 20% presumably made up of part-timers, NEETs, etc.

In Q1SQ, I thought it interesting that it was chance encounters with foreigners in the street or on holiday that was more of a reason to learn English when compared to other situations such as communicating better with foreign friends or dare I suggest looking for an exotic partner. I’ll also throw Q2 back at my readers.

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Here’s a quicky on New Year resolutions, in particular on what qualifications Japanese would like to try to get in 2008. This survey was presented by goo Ranking.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of November 2007 1,101 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% of the sample was female, 6.2% in their teens, 15.4% in their twenties, 30.2% in their thirties, 27.1% in their forties, 11.0% in their fifties, and 10.3% aged sixty or older. Note that the score reported is the relative number of votes each choice got, not the percentage of the sample that chose each option.

I too want to do the second choice, the Kanji Kentei! It’s surprisingly fun to study, and a good excuse to buy a Nintendo DS to help with your study. Sadly, none of the tests that I featured in an earlier article made the cut! Also note that the word kentei, 検定, is the Japanese for examination, but it also has implications of being an exam with various grades. Regarding getting English qualifications, Let’s Japan had an interesting article on the chain school market.
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