Content area
Full Text
Elite Japanese universities are renowned for their strength in research, but does their reputation also reflect quality in teaching? Times Higher Education's student-focused Japan University Rankings and student experience survey offer some fascinating insights. Holly Else reports
Do "top" universities provide the best teaching? That question has long been moot, given the extent to which institutional reputation is formed by research performance. The sometimes surprising results of the UK's teaching excellence framework last year suggest that the connection between a high-ranking university and a good student experience is certainly not guaranteed.
In Japan, the question is particularly subject to debate given the country's unfortunate international reputation for discouraging critical thinking and creativity in its education system. Few data exist on teaching quality in Japanese universities, but the
Times Higher Education
Japan University Rankings, launched last year and repeated this year, provide some insights.
The ranking is modelled on the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education US College Rankings, which were first published in 2016. Overall scores are constructed on the basis of the same four "pillars" - resources, engagement, outcomes and environment; see methodology on page 44 - all of which focus primarily on what institutions offer students. In that respect, the rankings differ considerably from
THE
's World University Rankings, which are primarily informed by research data.
At first glance, comparing the two rankings suggests that Japan's performance in teaching is not vastly different from its performance in research. The Japan rankings are headed by the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University, which are also Japan's highest-ranked representatives in the
THE
World University Rankings, at numbers 46 and joint 74th, respectively. Third is Tohoku University, which is Japan's joint-third highest representative in the world rankings. And the country's fifth in the world rankings, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, is fourth in the Japan rankings, produced in partnership with Japanese education company Benesse.
However, in preparing this year's rankings,
THE
also directly surveyed undergraduates at Japanese institutions about teaching at their universities. The survey - which was carried out on a trial basis and does not feed into the main rankings this year - assesses opportunities for interacting with faculty, as well as the extent to which teaching challenges students, enhances their critical thinking and helps...