SONE Fumio

This report is the result of interviews with students from abroad enrolled at Yamaguchi Prefectural University’s Graduate School about the prevailing educational and learning circumstances and their educational needs. These foreign students wish to hear and understand academic Japanese, and aim to write their master theses in academic Japanese. The University appreciates the importance of support when learning the Japanese language, but foreign students were unaware of the support provided by Yamaguchi Prefectural University for master’s students wishing to draft their thesis in academic Japanese.

In order to obtain knowledge useful for first-year education and student instruction, the transition of academic performance during 4 years of university was retrospectively investigated for the higher and lower percentiles of grade point average (GPA) at the time of graduation from university. The self-evaluation score of learning outcomes, the PROG test score, and adaptation to university life were examined in the two groups. Furthermore, the relationship between the first-year academic performance and the scholastic ability before enrolling in university was analyzed. Comprehensive scholastic ability in high school fundamentally influenced the academic performance in university evaluated by GPA. Compared with the higher GPA group, the lower GPA group had lower scores on the PROG test and for feelings of selfaffirmation in the first year of university. We consider educational interventions in the pre-enrollment period and the first year of university to be highly important to improve academic performance throughout the 4-year period of university.