General Education


Faculty

Toshie Agawa

Toshie Agawa
Title 
Professor

Field of Specialization
Motivation of EFL learners, communication Strategies, Cooperative learning

My research interests include motivation of EFL learners, cooperative learning, and communication strategies. Recently, I have been conducting research on Japanese university EFL learners’ motivation within the framework of self-determination theory. I have been working on a research project on Directed Motivational Currents as well.

Atsuko Shinohara

Atsuko Shinohara
Title
Professor

Field of Specialization
Health science, Analytic chemistry

My research subject is health disorders caused by excess and/or deficiency of biological essential elements. I also have studied the behavior of rare earth elements widely used in industrial fields, using experimental animals. Intake, distribution, time-dependent change and their biological effects were different depending on the element, their chemical forms and exposure routes. I consider effective health education in classes using some simple experiments and topics of recent problems concerning nutrition and environmental health.

Fumihiko Takeda

Fumihiko Takeda
Title
Professor

Field of Specialization
Christian theology, Catholic theology

Speaking of Syria today, it is an area where there are many refugees in the civil war situation, destruction of cultural heritage by Muslim countries and genocide of minority residents. However, this area was a place where the proprietary Christian culture using Syrian language flourished, which is one of the Aramaic dialects that Jesus and the apostles were supposed to have spoken before the rise of Islam. My research topic is to elucidate the ideological characteristics of authors who wrote works in Syrian language. Despite its historical and thought-historical importance, Syrian-Christian literature is little known in our country. I aim to fill up the scholarly gap.

Takeshi Fukuda

Takeshi Fukuda
Title
Professor

Field of Specialization
Cognitive science, Information security psychology

Transfer and acquisition of domain knowledge in education. Evaluation and selection of learning strategies, utilization of existing knowledge, construction of object models, utilization of external resources, especially when the domain knowledge on learning objects is poor.

Masaki Yoshioka

yoshioka
Title
Professor

Field of Specialization
Moral development, Moral education

The cognitive process and criteria of our moral judgments. Problems of current moral education and methods of moral education based on cognitive process of moral judgment.

Hirotsugu Hirata

Hirotsugu Hirata
Title
Specially Appointed Professor

Field of Specialization
Social studies education, History education, Civic education

"Social studies to think"
I research what kind of classes are necessary in order for children to "think". In those classes it is necessary to have such things as interesting talks, to present the actual things, DVDs, and effective questions after a sufficient research of the teaching materials. The evaluation would be based on how much meanings the class gives to each child. All of these activities of teachers will lead to "plan strategies of questions”.

Yoko Saito

Yoko Saito
Title
Associate Professor

Field of Specialization
Library and information science

Information resource organization, Classification theory, Science literacy and library.

Miho Nishimura

Miho Nishimura
Title
Associate Professor

Field of Specialization
Japanese language education, Japanese teacher training

With regard to Japanese oral management ability measurement based on ACTFL-OPI, I am interested in "reaction of listeners", especially "ability to listen and speak" such as "cooperative utterance" in language learners, Can-do-statements and Japanese language acquisition of Korean learners. In addition, I am also researching on training of students' ability of Japanese teacher training courses.

Yui Fujimoto

fujimoto
Title
Associate Professor

Field of Specialization
Philosophy of education

What is the significance of learning at universities? How are universities involved with society? What are the differences among vocational schools, preparation schools and universities? I am thinking about the significance of existence of universities from the viewpoints of "classics" and "liberal arts".