Attitudes and Intentions of Japanese Students and Teachers in Internal Quality Assurance in a Confucian-Heritage Culture

Abstract

In this reflective essay, as a member of the Office of Management for Teaching and Learning, a division of internal quality assurance in the University of Tsukuba, I write from my perspective about what I see as the attitudes and intentions that are conducive to partnership, focusing on pedagogical partnership in an arena within the traditionally sole purview of teachers. Specifically, I aim to clarify my attitudes and intentions, the attitudes and intentions of students who participated in internal quality assurance activities, and the attitudes and intentions of teachers who worked in partnership with these students. These efforts to name and clarify attitudes and intentions in forming a good student-staff pedagogical partnership in a Confucian-heritage culture demonstrate that it is essential to adapt the Western idea of ‘students as partners’ to the Eastern context. I begin with a discussion of Japan as a Confucian-heritage culture, then describe the University of Tsukuba’s effort to position students as partners to teachers in internal quality assurance and my role in that effort, and then discuss the attitudes and intentions that students and teachers brought to this work.