Five Japanese women: Developing independence through self-directed homework

Writer(s): 
Teruko Nakajima

The purpose of this paper is to report on the results of a project that explored the effectiveness of self-directed homework as a way in which to foster autonomous learners. I privately tutored five adult women for two years to investigate their emotional development and material selection. The setting was outside of the classroom situation where students studied alone without direct help from the teacher. Students constructed their own studies, choosing material and evaluating their own work. This constructivist approach underlines the importance of the learner’s role in controlling, reflecting and acquiring knowledge (Candy, 1991). The results revealed a three-stage developmental process: initial dependency, less dependency, and finally independence from the teacher as they were able to select their homework and evaluate their learning.

本研究の目的は、宿題の形をとった自主性強化学習法の効用の結果を報告することです。二年間に及ぶ5人の日本人女性の感情進歩と素材選択の分析結果です。教師直接補助なしで課外勉強する環境に於いて、生徒が自己の学習法を各々選び自己評価して積み上げていく過程を明らかにしています。この研究はキャンディ-の主題である学習者による“積み上げ方式”、即ち、自己学習法式を自ら作り上げ、統制して、熟考して、知識を習得すると言う考えにもとづいています。結果は教師に対する初期依存期、依存減少期、独立期と言う三段階の成長を示します。

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