Educational recommender systems have been supporting personalized learning in various ways. However, less discussion is conducted about whether and how to personalize the strategies to generate recommendations based on student differences. In this study, we aim at investigating how students judge recommendations based on different strategies, and…

Our research examined whether adolescents in the United States, China, and Japan differed in their conceptions of a creative person. Participants were American (n = 321), Chinese (n = 235), and Japanese (n = 393) adolescents in 7th and 8th grades who completed surveys at 3 time points. Using an open-ended questionnaire, adolescents were asked to…

In this globalization-focused era, the demand for globalized engineers in the creation of borderless societies is increasing. Despite the initiatives by the Japanese government to promote internalization through increasing the intake of foreign students, the exposures gained by the Japanese students from these programs are minimal. For years,…

This study aims to understand Japanese university students' perceptions of foreign English teachers (FETs) through a two-phased exploratory sequential mixed-methods design. During the initial phase, a quantitative survey was performed with first and second-year Japanese university students (n=377). Despite a lack of precision and a high dispersion…

'Grit' has been identified as an important predictor of success in a number of academic and non-academic domains (Duckworth, A. L., C. Peterson, M. D. Matthews, and D. R. Kelly. 2007. "Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals." "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology" 92: 1087-1101.…

Language is one of the most critical factors in the formation and maintenance of national identities. Situated within the national context of Japan and drawing data from a population of 292 Japanese university students, this study departs with three objectives. First, the study assesses the contribution of Japanese national identity to criterion…

Conventional folk wisdom insists study abroad is an inherently valuable educational experience for young people. While traditional study abroad programs were typically a semester or a full year in duration, short-term study abroad programs of only a couple weeks are now the most common type of sojourn abroad. Problematically, evidence is mounting…

This paper describes a study designed to profile performances of L2 listenership. The writer examines the listenership behavior of 23 Japanese EFL learners, who were all freshmen students at a national university in Japan (16 females and 5 males) at the time the study was conducted, in an attempt to identify some of the features associated with…

Understanding the make-up of gritty L2 students has garnered quite a lot of attention recently. In this descriptive narrative-based study, we looked at the interview data of eight English language learners who recorded high scores on a nine-item grit questionnaire. Specifically, two female university students each from Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand…

This study explored the longitudinal changes of Japanese EFL learners' psychological attributes of unwillingness to speak English in a task-based classroom. Thirty-three university students participated in this study. They engaged in a communicative task once a week for two semesters. They completed a questionnaire examining the psychological…

The metrics of self-efficacy and self-assessment were surveyed and analysed in order to examine the effectiveness of note taking instruction on emotional aspects of participants during a blended learning course. The changes of emotional aspects due to student's individual characteristics were also analysed. Participants were surveyed twice during…

Recently, situated willingness to communicate (WTC) has received increasing research attention in addition to traditional quantitative studies of trait-like WTC. This article is an addition to the former but unique in two ways. First, it investigates both trait and state WTC in a classroom context and explores ways to combine the two to reach a…

Student's emotional aspects are often discussed in order to promote better learning activity in blended learning courses. To observe these factors, course participant's self-efficacy and reflections upon their studies were surveyed, in addition to the surveying of the metrics of student's characteristics during a Bachelor level credit course.…

Personality traits are believed to affect both learner ability and group dynamics and cohesion. Another central element influencing how individuals perform in group settings stems from their motivation to collaborate. This article explores the relationship between personality traits, motivation for collaboration and participation of university…

Small groups are integral for many activities in the foreign language classroom and their pedagogical importance is well established. Despite the widespread use of groups in foreign language education, there is a dearth of research investigating group processes and the impact of emergent leaders within these groups. This mixed-methods,…