Abstract:

Meeting the needs of human resource development at international arena in order to tackle global issues, higher institutions have developed and implemented university globalization policies. Along with the international extent, in case of Japan, internationalization of higher education is highly related to domestic situation surrounded by globalized society. In other words, in order to sustain nation’s socioeconomic activities while facing demographic aging, Japanese government has started implementing global human resource development policy at universities, so that the nation will be able to expand the economic and labor markets even more to the global scale. In implementing government policy for global human resource development, Tokyo Institute of Technology (hereafter called “Tokyo Tech”) has started “Global Scientists and Engineering Course” in 2013 targeting undergraduate students. Global Scientists and Engineering Course (hereafter called “GSEC”) is educational curriculum running parallel to bachelor’s degree programmes for students to acquire global competencies, namely global perspective, English proficiency and communication skills, multicultural understanding and teamwork, problem finding and solving skills, and practical abilities at overseas.

The purpose of this research is to assess the motivation in participating the GSEC and their learning outcomes of the Course. Three groups according to the year of entrance and graduation are target for this study. They are 219 students for FY 2013-2016, 221 students for FY2014-2017, and 302 students for FY2015-2018. Through this research, it is aimed to assess the effectiveness of curriculum in meeting the global demand for science and engineering education.

In so doing, this paper first outlines:
1) the background and curriculum contents of the GSEC,
2) research method,
3) research result,
4) analysis of the result, and
5) lesson learned for further review of the engineering education for global competencies.

For the motivation and learning outcome, text mining and contents analysis based on the comments each student makes at the time of application and completion were conducted. Specifically, each students were requested to describe in approximately 100 words about the motivation to join GSEC. During the completion procedure, students were requested to summarize their learning outcome as part of their self-evaluation in 400 words. Co-occurrence network analysis was conducted to further understand the specific actions and learning that group of students have hoped to gain and have had gained.

There was no differences in motivations and outcomes according to year of entrance and graduation. The two most frequently appeared words for all target groups both for motivation and learning outcomes are “English”, and “Overseas”. From the co-occurrence network analysis, it was found out that students’ primary objective to join the course is to improve English skill and to visit abroad. For students who have completed the course, they have set their goal to equip with English communication skill, and visit abroad for their future career. Their learning outcomes are along with their motivation, namely improvement in English communication, and gain study abroad experience, and through those learning, they have acquired multicultural understanding, and communication skill through group work.

Keywords:

Global competencies, Science and Engineering Education, Japan, Global Human Resource Development.