This study reports how extensive reading (ER) teachers implemented ER and used reading materials at institutions in formal educational systems in Japan, Mongolia, Thailand, and Vietnam. 259 participants completed an online questionnaire. The results revealed that ER was mainly required and done online in Japan and Mongolia while it was optional…

Education for sustainable development (ESD) has for decades been a focus internationally and has been embraced in the Japanese curriculum since 2008. Given UNESCO's emphasis on teacher training for ESD and well-established in-service teacher training programmes in Japan, the aim of this study is to explore whether ESD teacher training could help…

In Japan, many high school students have severe depression. Preventive interventions for school-based cognitive-behavioral depression are effective countermeasures against depressive problems among high school students. However, since high school curriculums are time-consuming, such interventions are less common among high school students.…

The "first-grade problem" of the lack of concentration, listening, and following of instruction has been widely identified among Japanese kindergarten students. To promote their executive functioning and self-regulation to prevent this issue, we developed the Social Thinking and Academic Readiness Training (START) program. The…

Life skills (LS) training programs help individuals develop their mental health and stress-related attitudes. This study aims to build a versatile physical education program (PEP) to promote LS and examine its effectiveness. The subjects were first-year Japanese university students. We conducted the LS survey in April (pre-semester) and August…

The Early Childhood Education Quality (ECEQ) initiative is a pioneering approach toward supporting ongoing, self-organized professional development in the private kindergarten sector in Japan. The purpose of this study is to examine how kindergarten teachers and ECEQ coordinators experience this approach and view the ECEQ process. Online…

Self-direction skill (SDS) is an essential 21st-century skill that can help learners be independent and organized in their quest for knowledge acquisition. While some studies considered learners from higher education levels as the target audience, providing opportunities to start the SDS practice by K12 learners is still rare. Further, practicing…

This article reports on findings from the application of BL to a school improvement project involving two K-12 international schools in Japan. These findings relate to six research questions concerning how involvement with this project impacted teachers' ICT confidence, how change management was perceived for the project, how this project sought…

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a concept that is gaining a following worldwide as a cost-effective means for schools to provide 21st-century skills (Bell, 2010) with limited funding. The current paper shows the results of a survey into the opinions and perceptions of parents of Japanese K1-3 students' use of technology, specifically the…

Empowering families of children with autism spectrum disorder through education and training is best practice. A wide range of Parent Education and Training programmes are delivered around the globe, but there is limited knowledge about the characteristics of these programmes, or about the research methods and outcomes used to evaluate them,…

The Japanese educational system is highly competitive and applies high stakes standardized admission testing. As this approach has led to student stress and a narrow instructional focus, the Japanese Government revised educational goals toward more holistic development of well-rounded citizens who are healthy, independent, creative, and work…

By using the methods of document literature, induction and synthesis, this paper makes a literature review and comparative study on the relevant research of school physical education laws and regulations in China and Japan. Japan is a developed country of school physical education in the world. In the process of building school physical education…

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology recommended the implementation of "Kyoshi-juku" by local Education Boards. "Kyoshi-juku" provide teacher preparation curricula, classroom observational experiences, and specific information about working in local school contexts as a supplement to the…

The adoption of English-medium instruction degree and non-degree programs in non-Anglophone universities has grown dramatically over the past 15 years. Japan is not an exception. In the Japanese context, a growing number of research works have addressed the implementation of English-medium degree programs at the undergraduate level; however,…

This quasi-experimental study reports on the outcomes of a video-synchronous learning program in which an element of project-based foreign language learning was integrated. The project chosen was to cooperatively create a homepage. American students learning Japanese in the United States and Japanese students learning English in Japan made pairs…