Doctoral Dissertations
Cross-national knowledge and attitudes of senior high school students in Japan and the United States
Date of Award
12-1982
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Major
Curriculum and Instruction
Major Professor
A. Montgomery Johnston
Committee Members
J. J. Bellon, Eric Gangloff, L. O. Haaby, Charles Chance
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of and relationships between the cross-national knowledge and attitudes of senior high school students in Japan and the United States. Data for the study were gathered from 919 students in twenty-three senior high schools in geographically diverse areas of Japan, and from 751 students in senior high schools in California, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, and Texas.
Knowledge tests used in this study were developed from a frame-work especially designed to sample the comprehensive cross-national knowledge of students tested. The knowledge tests measured student knowledge in five categories. The primary instruments for measuring student attitudes were modifications of the semantic differential and the Bogardus Social Distancing Scale. These instruments measured the affective, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions of attitude. study also examined the relationship of selected demographic data to the nature of and the relationships between cross-national knowledge and attitude.
The research demonstrated that Japanese students know more about the United States than United States students know about Japan. However, the attitudes of United States students toward Japan were more positive than were the attitudes of Japanese students toward the United States. The study showed that learning in the cognitive domain parallels learning in the affective domain, and that this relationship is consistent across cultures. Students scoring in the top quartile on the knowledge test in Japan and the United States had significantly more positive attitudes cross-nationally than did students scoring in the bottom quartile on the knowledge test.
No significant correlations were demonstrated between categories of knowledge and total attitude scores or between dimensions of attitude and total knowledge scores. However, major trends were observed. The correlation was greater between the cognitive dimension of attitude and total knowledge scores for United States students and between the behavioral dimension and total knowledge scores for Japanese students. Patterns of correlation between categories of knowledge and total attitude scores were reversed for Japanese and United States students. Correlations were consistently greater for Japanese females than for Japanese males, and were generally greater for United States males than for United States females.
Recommended Citation
Spence, Donald Lee, "Cross-national knowledge and attitudes of senior high school students in Japan and the United States. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1982.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/13329