学生消費者主義と大学授業研究 : 学習活動の分析を通して

Abstract

This paper discusses how teaching can help change university students from passive consumers to active producers under the spread of student consumerism in Japan. Student consumerism, the phenomenon defined by David Riesman in the United States in early 1980s, has also become widespread in Japan with more deepseated passiveness in a highly developed educational industry. Our approach has two characteristics. First, we adopted activity system model proposed by Yrjö Engeström as a unit of analysis. The model delineates learning activity as a system composed of subject, tools, object/motive, community, rules, division of labor, and out come. It not only helps to analyze teaching at university, but also clarifies the relationship between knowledge and skill acqusition and activity. Second, we conducted a case study on two teaching practices that differed in terms of academic field, class type, motivation of the students, etc., and yet similarly successful in creating active producers. We found that the teachers construct the learning environments which can involve the students in learning and that, at the same time, they let students decide how to utilize the resources at hand. Those learning environments contained the following common features: (1) organization of activity system as a whole, (2) authenticity of activity, and (3) incorporation of learning outside the classroom into activity system. The generalizability of the findings needs further examination.