Effects on Nationally Normed Test Caused By the Duration of Time

Effects on Nationally Normed Test Caused By the Duration of Time
That Japanese Children Study Abroad
A proposal presented to the Graduate Faculty of
Troy University
In Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for
EDU 6691

By
Marianne L Miller








Chapter I
Introduction
Statement of the Problem
As industrial globalization continues to grow, the need for Japanese families of varying social status to travel and work abroad is also increasing. Japanese children in these families must adjust to the educational system of the hosting country, and then must return to the Japanese educational system upon their return to their native country. This poses a unique problem for Japanese children, as their native country supports a culture of sameness, which can be represented by an old Japanese quote that says, “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down”. When these children return to the Japanese school system, they are considered different and not truly Japanese anymore. This creates a negative atmosphere for these children and affects how they are treated by their classmates and teachers, posing a challenge to achieve educational excellence. The duration of the time abroad must have an influence on the level of individualism for these children, and therefore must affect their re-entrance into their native school system.
Limitations and Delimitations of the Study
Japanese children which will be moving abroad will be chosen for this study. The Japanese children between the ages of seven and 10 will be chosen for this study. The size of the study will consist of more than 90 children, each from a different family, and representing at least 25 of the 47 Japanese prefectures. These families that will be selected will have lived in the USA for durations ranging from 1 year to 5 years.
Purpose of the Study
This study is to help understand the ramifications of living and studying abroad on Japanese children’s national test scores. The intent is not to prove that the Japanese educational system or the American educational system is better. It is only to show the potential impact of the duration of life abroad on the educational future of Japanese children upon returning to their native country.
Significance of the Study
The results of this study can be used by Japanese families who are planning to live abroad. They can better understand the problems that might be faced by the children upon returning to Japan for decision-making purposes when deciding the duration of their time abroad. This study can also be used by globalized companies that require employees to travel. They can use it to prepare these traveling families for expectations upon their return. It could also impact the number of companies that offer special Japanese-style classes to its employees’ children to help keep them in touch with their native culture, learning style, speech, and other factors that affect their Japaneseness to make re-entry into Japanese society easier and less impactful on their national test scores.
Definition of Terms
Returnees--a person who has lived in another country for over 1 year before returning to their native country
Japaneseness—A perception of the quantity/quality of Japanese character someone possesses
Prefectures—Japanese geographic and governmental areas, similar to the states of the United States of America
Hypothesis
National Test Scores will decrease for Japanese students studying abroad as the duration of their stay abroad increases.















Chapter II
Review of Literature
Japanese Education
While the quality of Japanese Education may be a debatable subject, it is certain that the Japanese, like most First World countries, consider education to be a very important factor in the health of their country. A website created by MEXT( July 8, 2009) , the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology-Japan, states that education is the foundation for better society and life. In fact, the Monbusho, or Japan Ministry of Education writes or reforms educational guidelines about once per decade. (Parmenter, p.242) One re-occurring theme in literature concerning Japanese education is the message of “Japanese Sameness”. It is engrained into every Japanese person through home teaching, and then reinforced in school. This teaching creates individuals that identify themselves only with other Japanese and their country. The rest of the world is not the “same” because it is not Japanese. This unanimous cultural identity is an important factor to understand since it has a bearing on the motivation of children to learn.
In “Educating Hearts and Minds: Reflections on Japanese Preschool and Elementary Education”, Lewis (1995) claims the success of the Japanese school system is dependent on how well the basic needs of friendship, belonging, and contributions are met. Belonging, or acceptance is a basic need. This, coupled with the teaching of “sameness”, sets up the scenario for the difficulties Japanese children will have after living abroad and then returning to their country.
Japanese Families Abroad
In a book entitled “Japanese Education in the 21st Century”, Ishikida (1996) says that, “During the period of economic prosperity and a strong yen, more Japanese people than ever went abroad for travel, study and work…” This statement was made in reference to the globalization of the Japanese economy during the 1980s. From the researcher’s personal experience working for a Japanese-based company, this is also evident when each year new Japanese members are added to the staff of the American plant, and remain for usually a period of 1 to 5 years. During this extended work mission, the Japanese members usually bring their families with them, enrolling their children into local schools.
Upon return to their native country, the Japanese children are re-enrolled into the Japanese school system. When returning to Japan, these children are sometimes given remedial education as part of the introduction back into the school system. (Ishikida, 1996)
Difficult Return
Moving back to Japan can be difficult for both adults and children. The reverse culture shock is said to be worse for Japanese people than those who grew up in a multicultural society, like the USA (Mitchell, 2005). In Mitchell’s article, a quote from Dr. Takeshi Tamura, an assistant professor at Tokyo Gakugei University and therapist specializing in cases of reverse culture shock said, “this is because Japanese people tend to think they are unanimous and that if they want to be a member of the culture, then they have to be the same. Countries such as America and Europe consist of people from very diverse cultures and so they tend to assume that they are different from each other.”
Mitchell (2005) also claims that the effects of reverse culture shock are felt more strongly by school-age children. Her further proclamation is that it is worse not only because these children are assimilating back to their homeland, but that it is made worse from the bullying from teachers and fellow students alike. Other articles (Gray, 2004; Yates, 2003) support this proclamation, saying that these children lose their “Japaneseness”, and are treated as outsiders.
Summary
Japanese identity is a very important social belief. Being treated as an outsider can have psychological implications for Japanese children who have studied abroad. It also seems reasonable that the duration of time spent in another country affects the overall amount of change that takes place in an individual. Acceptance plays a major role in the success of Japanese education, and these returnees are not getting this basic need met by the school system nor society in general. Therefore, the fact that these children have studied abroad and now are treated differently from the other children by teachers and others must have a negative impact on their education, and thus their nationally normed test scores.








Chapter III
Methodology
Methods
A study will be performed using a quantitative analysis method to see the relationship between Japanese children’s time spent abroad and nationally normed test scores. A correlation will be made, and the r-square value will be used as the determining factor for judging the results.
Research Questions
The following questions will be considered by the researcher during the data collection and analysis:
1. Does the geographic location in Japan where the children return have an impact on test score results?
2. Does the USA geographic location (e.g. North, South) where the children are schooling have an impact on the test scores?
3. Does the USA schooling environment (e.g. rural versus metropolitan) have an impact on the test scores?
4. Are there other demographic factors besides age and time spent abroad which could affect the results of the study?
Population
The Japanese children who will be participating in this study will be between the ages of 7 and ten when they first move abroad to the USA. Also, children will be found to represent over half of the prefectures in Japan to ensure generalized results instead of localized results. Race, age and socioeconomic status will basically be controlled factors in the study to maintain time abroad as the primary variable. Each child will live in the USA for a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 5 years, and will return to the Japanese school system for up to 1 year before taking the post-test. The host areas will be varied in geographic locations.
Data Collection
Requests will be made to globalized Japanese corporations for families that will be moving abroad for work reasons. Families containing a child that meets the study’s criteria will be selected and invited to participate in the study. As each family is identified, a request will be made for the child’s latest normed test results. This data will be kept by the researcher. When the families return to Japan, the post-test will be administered and data collected.
Instrumentation
A statistical program called SPSS will be used to input and analyze the data.
Data Analysis
A generalized correlation will be made using the number of years spent abroad as compared to the change in Nationally Normed Test Scores from the Pre-test to the Post-test. The data will be correlated using Pearson’s r process to analyze it. The analysis will determine if there are significant differences in the Japanese student’s time spent in the U.S. on nationally normed test scores as compared to the scores of Japanese students that never leave Japan.
Ethical Treatment of Human Subjects
Since participants in the study will be under the age of 18, a permission form will be made explaining the study in simple terms. This form will be reviewed with the participants and their parent(s), and permission will be received verbally. Signatures of the parent(s) and the students will be required before the students are allowed to participate in the research project.














References
Education in Japan. (2009, July 8). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:04, July 8, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Education_in_Japan&oldid=301053141
Gray, Ronald. (2004, March). Teacher Resources [Review of the book Negotiating Bilingual and Bicultural Identities: Japanese Returnees Betwixt Two Worlds, by Yasuko Kanno]. TESL-EJ, Vol 7, No. 4, R-8. http://tesl-ej.org/ej28/r8.html
Ikeguchi, Cecilia B. (1996). Self Assessment and ESL Competence of Japanese Returnees [Abstract].
Ishikida, Miki Y.(June 2005). Japanese Education in the 21st Century. iUniverse, Inc. Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/
Lewis, Catherine C, 1995. Educating Hearts and Minds: Reflections on Japanese Preschool and Elementary Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MEXT: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology-Japan. Retrieved July 7, 2009 from http://www.mext.go.jp/english/
Mitchell, Vanessa. (2005, April 19). Home is Where Hardship is for Japanese Returnees. The Japan Times Online. Retrieved from http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20050419zg.html
Parmenter, Lynne. Stromquist, Nelly P. andMonkman, Karen. (Editors). 2005. Globalization and Education: Integration and Contestation Across Cultures. p. 237 – 253
Yates, Ronald E. (1990, September 23). Japan’s ‘Returnees’ Face Rejection, Find that Coming Home Isn’t Easy. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from http://www.davidappleyard.com/japan/jp40.htm