This study examines the underpinnings of Japan's "programming education" in elementary school music, officially implemented nationwide in 2020. Through that reform, which has introduced "programming thinking" (a local version of computational thinking) in all areas of compulsory education, the country follows the international…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the legal issues of simultaneous Internet transmission of broadcasting programs of the Open University of Japan (OUJ) and to take legal measures to promote the mutual utilization of open university courses in Japan, the UK, China and Korea. Design/methodology/approach: The author examines the…

This study examines the global expansion strategies that were initiated by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), with a specific focus on the adaptations of "Sesame Street: in Japan and South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. When CTW began its globalisation in the early 1970s, the international adaptation process of "Sesame Street"…

Cultivating children's creativity and imagination is fundamental to preparing them for an increasingly complex and uncertain future. Engaging in creative learning enables children to think independently and critically, work cooperatively, and take risks while actively engaged in meaningful projects. While current trends in education, such as maker…

Purpose: While it is particularly important that professional programs help teachers become members of a community of practice, especially in crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a lack of research about strategies to effectively encourage the development of a community of practice and to support teachers' transformation of…

This article uses the Japanese television anime series "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" (2011) as a case study through which to problematise the relationship between two prominent traditions within children's literature criticism: narratology, with its vocabulary of implied readers and textual address; and reception studies, which typically…

Aim/Purpose: Although many computer science measures have been proposed, visualizing individual students' capabilities is difficult, as those measures often rely on specific tools and methods or are not graded. To solve these problems, we propose a rubric for measuring and visualizing the effects of learning computer programming for elementary…

This discussion examines the ever-increasing impact of top-down nation-wide educational reforms on teachers in Japan, exemplified in the 2020 reform. Its unique contribution is a suggestion of an interdisciplinary framework: programming education and English as a foreign language education in elementary schools. Many elementary school teachers are…

Instrument measurement conducted with Rasch analysis is a common process in language assessment research. A recent systematic review of 215 studies involving Rasch analysis in language testing and applied linguistics research reported that 23 different software packages had been utilized. However, none of the analyses were conducted with one of…

Aim/Purpose: When learning to program, both text-based and visual-based input methods are common. However, it is unclear which method is more appropriate for first-time learners (first learners). Background: The differences in the learning effect between text-based and visual-based input methods for first learners are compared the using a…

As Japanese Ministry of Education educational mandates for implementation by 2020 press on public school administrators, teachers, students, and communities, the Sustainable Programming Education proposes strategies for addressing English and programming education curricula in the elementary and middle schools. Sustainability resides in the…

The Multimedia Principle (Fletcher & Tobias, 2005) states that people learn better and comprehend more when words and pictures are presented together. The potential for English language learners to increase their comprehension of video through the use of captions, which graphically display the same language as the spoken dialogue, has been…

Educational assessments occasionally require uniform test forms for which each test form comprises a different set of items, but the forms meet equivalent test specifications (i.e., qualities indicated by test information functions based on item response theory). We propose two maximum clique algorithms (MCA) for uniform test form assembly. The…

This article analyzes stylized pronunciations of English by Japanese speakers on televised variety shows in Japan. Research on style and mocking has done much to reveal how linguistic forms are utilized in interaction as resources of identity construction that can oftentimes subvert hegemonic discourse (Chun 2004). Within this research area,…

Cognitive modelling is one of the representative research methods in cognitive science. It is believed that creating cognitive models promotes learners' meta-cognitive activities such as self-monitoring and reflecting on their own cognitive processing. Preceding studies have confirmed that such meta-cognitive activities actually promote learning…