A Comparative Study of Japanese and US First-year Seminars: Examining Differences and Commonalties

Abstract

After the late 1990s, many Japanese universities introduced first-year seminars (FYS) to allow students to adjust smoothly to college life. The establishment of first-year seminars is related to the massification of higher education and accountability issues. What is the actual situation for first-year students in Japanese universities and the structure of first-year seminars? I conducted a national survey of Japanese four-year universities in 2001, and to compare the results with American cases, I conducted the same survey at four-year US higher education institutions in 2002. Later, in order to compare development of the FYS in Japan, the national survey of the FYS for all Japanese universities were conducted in 2007. The purpose of this paper is to compare and examine the results of the three surveys, which showed that many Japanese four-year universities have introduced first-year seminars recently to deal with the students’ declining academic performance. On the other hand, in American universities, first-year seminars have been introduced in most institutions regardless of the type of institution and there was improvement in students’ academic performance as well as motivation.