Hello, fellow Japanese language learners! I am currently a senior Asian Studies with a focus in Japanese language and culture. I am conducting research on the different methods that are undertaken throughout generations of Japanese language learners. For instance, how would someone who studied Japanese in the 1990’s differ now to someone who started to study the language in the 2000’s? In order to successfully draw any data from this survey, I am aiming for a minimum of 300 answers (participants) spanning from a variety of age groups, 13-16 being the lowest. All participants will remain anonymous, and the survey consists of 15 questions (mainly multiple choice). It would be a tremendous help if you were to partake in this survey. All data acquired would be used towards the advancement of research in second language acquisition and will be presented at a research fair at my university in the Spring of 2018.
Nice, good luck! You might consider adding a question about where we found the link to the survey (if that’s not somehow recorded through the magic of the internet); I suspect a lot of people who find it here will skew towards online independent learning, and if you’re advertising on campus or something that might skew towards group classroom learning. Looks good though!
I was actually wondering about the difference between how people learned back then and now. I feel sorry for anyone who had to look up kanji in a book. Good luck!
Is this at university/college level? Since I’m not a native English speaker I’m not sure what “Senior Asian Studies” means.
If this is for university/college I have serious doubts about getting any valid results from this kind of survey. I think you would be very well advised on reading a bit more on how to make scientific surveys before you begin to collect answers.
Some points to illustrate:
If you want to examine how learning Japanese has changed over time, why don’t have a question as to when the participants started studying? If they are, say, 50 years old but started in 2015 that means they are a representative of contemporary methods of learning Japanese. How will you know which persons from which age bracket started studying at what time?
People who are 25, 40 and 50 years old have no clear way of answering their age, since they are included in two categories (22-25/25-30 and 31-40/40-50 and 50+ respectively).
Why is “Do you enjoy sushi?” a question that helps you answer “different methods that are undertaken throughout generations of Japanese language learners”? It seems very arbitrary to me.
The question about opinions of kanji lacks an option of “Other - Please specify”
There are several more problems with this survey, but I think these would serve to prove my point.
If this is high school level or below it might be okay.
Also I realize this post sounds harsh, I just don’t want to see you pour all this energy into making a big survey with hundreds of participants only to get results you can’t draw any valid conclusions from.
EDIT: I re-read your post and saw that you clarified university level. Sorry for reading too hastily.
Thank you for your input.
Senior Asian Studies would mean I am a fourth year in college, my final year.
I am not too well versed in the area of survey making, I’ll use this survey as a trial run as I do recognize that it has many faults as it is already. Totally didn’t recognize that age part, I’ll correct it. In regards to sushi, I wanted to touch on a few the stereotypes Japanese learners face for learning the language. When it comes to kanji I didn’t want to make an Other option because it is such a huge part of the language, I felt that adding an other option would skew the data a bit too much. You don’t sound harsh at all, I am a college student conducting research, its merely constructive criticism and I appreciate it
Filled in. I was surprised games wasn’t an option for the question: why are you learning Japanese. I have quite a few friends who learn it for playing games
I wish I could have been a bit more nuanced in my opinion of kanji. I feel they’re helpful and interesting, but obviously the language would function fine without them (since people can speak it and be understood).
I also had no basis of comparison for difficulty. Compared to what? Other languages? The most difficult thing imaginable?
Even if I were to limit myself to only other foreign languages, apart from Japanese itself, I have only ever learned English, which is quite similar to my native Swedish. I have no way of knowing how difficult I would find it to be compared to other non-germanic languages.
I’ll expand on @arjoykanji’s suggestion and also suggest adding a third “Do you currently live in Japan” question, as I know quite a few people here, including myself, live in Japan, which is quite different than simply visiting both in learning the language and in motivations for use.
Slight pedantry, but in the interests of learning…
For the question “What is your first language?” you have “Hangul” listed as an answer, which specifically relates to the Korean writing system not the language, which would be 한국어 hangug-eo. Kinda like saying “Hiragana” is my first language.
Small blip, great survey, it was obviously created with the Japanese learner in mind, however there were just a couple things.
I believe question 6(?) asked if I was formally learning Japanese. While I did formally learn Japanese, seeing as it was my major in university, I have graduated and am currently using self study. The way the question was posed seemed to be too binary.
Also, it was mentioned in an above comment, that the survey is also most likely for those not living in Japan. I am not sure how long I am exposed to the Japanese language because its kinda everywhere. Also with the 10 years question is a bit too binary as well.
But overall congrats on your senior year and all the work you have put in so far to get here! おめでとうございます！
Thank you everyone for your support and notes on the survey, I really didn’t notice some of those things mentioned above. I’ll definitely have to make a more refined version of this survey and redistribute it in the future!
