Statistical Characteristics of English Entrance Exams of National Universities in Japan

Abstract

In spite of the decreasing population of teenagers in Japan, the university entrance exams continue to be one of the toughest events where their intelligence is tested, which include their competency level of English. However, very few researches have conducted on English exams. This study is a part of the continuous study the researchers have started in 2017, which studied the English entrance exams of eight national universities. They were selected from the list according to the T-score; two schools from 4 levels. The current study added the results of 2018 exams of the same universities. Upon digitalizing their English exams, the researchers first measured their readability levels using Ozasa-Fukui Year Level. They also performed Correspondence Analysis to study the interrelations among the nine exams. All eight exams are measured to be 7 th year or higher by Ozasa-Fukui Year Level, which is created to measure English level according to the 6 years in the secondary school system in Japan. The correspondence analysis produced 7 dimensions. However, due to the unexpectedly high value of one exam, the other seven exams’ interrelations became obscured; we have decided to perform another analysis without that particular exam. Its results showed that the seven exams could be categorized according to “business and culture” and “family.” The researchers further employed Cluster Analysis to study all seven dimensions produced by Correspondence Analysis, which showed that Kyoto18 and Hokkaido18 have strong ties with each other. We believe this study has given us a definite starting point for the research on the university entrance exams in Japan. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijhss.11.6.2