Vocational Education in Japan
Introduction
The focus of the critique is self-regulated learning in vocational education in Japan. Vocational training, in simple terms, means tertiary education that involves instilling working skills to learners in specific areas, for example, engineering (Hampf & Woessmann, 2017). The journals chosen in this overview are “Professional Career Education in Japan and Its Revelations” by Gu Yu published in 2006 and “The Formulation of Professional and Vocational Universities” by Motohisa Kaneko published in 2019. The choice of these two journals is based on the diversity of the information provided about vocational education in Japan. The reason why these two journals are preferred is because of the difference in times of their publication. The first journal by Gu Yu was published in 2006, while the second by Motohisa Kaneko was published in 2019. The essence is to try and analyze the difference in how self-regulation was conducted in different decades in Japan.
The two journals are connected in such a way that the central focal point here is evaluating vocational training in Japan. The journal “professional career education in Japan and its revolutions,” explosively talks about how learners should benefit from vocational education. On the other hand, the journal “Formulation of Professional and vocational universities” talks about the process of administering vocational training to learners in universities. These two cases in the journal all explain how to self-regulate learning in vocational education so that learners get the best skills to prepare them for their careers. The main question in the two journals that is addressed is how to ensure required, and relevant skills are administered in vocational training. The question has been answered in both journals with clear guidelines provided on how the educational system in Japan expects professional institutions should operate.
The strength in both interviews of the two journals is that the information collected was from the ministry related to vocational training and tertiary institutions. This type of interview in the two journals is advantageous since it provides accurate first-hand data during the research. So that to supplement this, interviews were conducted from university and college students making the data reliable. It is worth noting to state that the consistency of results can assess validity and reliability in these two journals during the study. The trustworthiness of the results in the two journals can be used to determine authenticity, which is used to assess the credibility of results (Mohajan, 2017). The paper would be evaluating the information in these journals as well as critiquing them to determine how they explain vocational training in Japan.
Personal Positioning
The professional research interest in this paper is to find out how self-regulation learning is available in Japan tertiary institutions as far as vocational education is concerned. The motivation behind this is to examine how students benefit in self-regulation and how the skills are going to equip their career development. In vocational education, the concept of self-regulation has been developed in theories of psychology (Brown et al., 2016). This is then followed by learners forming their goals, putting practices in place that enable them to work towards their goals, reviewing their learning based on their goals and determining how targets would be applied in their next step (Mikkonen et al., 2017). Therefore, the professional interest, in this case, is to learn how vocational education fulfills these goals.
The positioning is that the research approaches used in the two journals are precise and straight to the point. In the journal “professional career education in Japan and its revolutions,” the descriptive research study approach is not complicated as it evaluates in detail the practicing of vocational education in Japan. The paradigms in the journal “Formulation of Professional and vocational universities” are full of positivism. They are reliable as they provide an optimistic view and future of learners after completion of their education. It is useful to add that the positioning of the methods used in both journals is satisfying because the methods for analyzing data collected as well as those used in data collection, are relatively accurate. The evaluation criteria used in the evaluation of two journals is the time of their publications (van Wesel, 2015). One of the journals is published recently in 2019 (“Formulation of Professional and vocational universities”) while the other is published in 2006 (“professional career education in Japan and its revolutions”). The journal published recently is the most appropriate to be used because it contains updated data. Also, the older journal may provide obsolete information that may not be relevant due to changes in the education system in Japan.
Summary of the Journals
Professional Career Education in Japan and its Revolutions
The journal has been peer-reviewed seven times with those targeted in the peer-reviewing being those who want to enroll in vocational education in Japan. The journals demonstrate optimism in integrating professional learning in Japan to persuade potential learners. The journal has been cited four times because the reader may have found the information in the journals useful (Li-jun 2010). Those who cited the journal have benefitted in a professional way because they have commented that they are successful in their careers because of the knowledge from the journal. The aim of research in this journal is to investigate the relationship between self-regulated learning and motivation towards successful vocational learning in tertiary institutions. This investigation is to find how self-regulation learning impacts or affects vocational education in Japan. The background of the study was mainly done in local universities, colleges, and other tertiary institutions in Japan. Vocational training in Japan has been present since the 19th century, with many new institutions emulating from early tertiary institutions to impact career skills to learners (Grubb & Lazerson, 2014). The high number of students enrolled in these institutions has led to a change in the system of learning to self-regulatory learning. The main area of concepts in the study in these articles was to examine the state of affairs in these vocational institutions. The methods used in data collection in the research of this journal are the use of Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), Integrated Motivation Questionnaire, counseling, Self-efficacy, and achievement and interviews. The methods used in data collection were mainly based on finding out the quality of the education system in Japan. The methods used in data analysis are the KJ method and comparisons to determine their accuracy. KJ method was mainly used to analyze data from counseling.
In the research of this journal, various findings were found based on the method of data collection. According to Mays & Pope (2020), the method of data collection determines the quality and type of data collected in research studies. In the counseling method of data collection, an action plan was prepared, and it was found out that many students in Japan go for vocational training to fulfill the dream of their career choices. It was also found out that self-regulated learning is mostly practiced in vocational institutions in Japan to ensure quality learning and learners get the required skills to be used in their careers (Ishikawa, (2018). It was concluded that there are different levels of self-regulated learning based on the findings from the study. The first level involves realizing the gap between reality and ideal. The second level of self-regulated learning consists in identifying the general solutions to fill the gap (JIANG, 2019). The third level involves choosing specific solutions that would be perfect. During the research in this journal, the ethical issues reported include objectivity, which was adopted to prevent any biasness of the study. There were honesty and integrity in the methods of data collection, analysis, and compilation of results. This honesty and integrity were necessary because it describes the legitimacy of research (Argyropoulos et al., 2011).
Formulation of Professional and vocational universities
The journal has been peer-reviewed three times, and it is in its third volume with the intention of peer-reviewing to find out how vocational training is conducted in Japan Universities. The journal has been cited six times because the journal has an impact on updating readers on the type of vocational training they can receive in Japanese universities. The aim of the research in this journal is to investigate how vocational training is done in Japanese universities. The study also aims to find the practices that these universities incorporate in their learning system to ensure quality skills are acquired. The research also seeks to find the political context in professional training. It is pertinent to add that the research in this journal aims to get knowledge of how the government supports the local communities in getting professional training in universities in Japan. It is studied by Chalmers (2014) that government support is crucial in the success of any system of education in any country.
The background of research in this journal was based on describing the emergency of vocational education in Japan. It is reviewed in the journal that vocational training in Japan was formulated in 2017. The relationship between universities and other vocational institutions in Japan has been studied to be complicated (Hyland, 2018). With the new formulation of the vocational education system, it was going to repair the soured relationship to ensure equal and professional learning. The formulation of the new vocational education system was necessary after various critics from scholars and the community. The methods used in data collection were both qualitative and quantitative methods. In qualitative data collection, the research employed use of interviews while in quantitative data collection the journal states that questionnaires and surveys were employed. Questionnaires were used on students at the university level and government authorities. The authority responsible for the ministry of education was also interviewed to get data on government support in university education in Japan. Surveys especially case studies were used to review on the role of political sector in vocational training in universities.
It is useful to add that the methods used in data analysis were use of charts, graphs, and skill models. A pie-chart was used to analyze the distribution of students in various universities in Japan. It is pertinent to add that bar graphs were used to relate the distribution of completed university students in different industrial sectors. Skill models were used to analyze the level of knowledge in different levels. It was found out that government offers maximum support to local communities by funding 35% of their vocational training in universities (Kitada & Harada, 2019). It was also found out that Japan universities incorporate self-regulated learning for quality vocational training (Mengqing & Pei, 2016). The ethical issues reported in this study are honesty and integrity just like the other journal discussed above. Other ethical issues reported include respect of intellectual property, openness and confidentiality. According to Stoyanova (2015) ethical issues in research are important for quality and ensure that research is legit.
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