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Brian G. Rubrecht, Meiji University, JapanAbstract
In 2019 many Tokyo educational institutions made plans to better accommodate the start of the then-upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics by truncating, postponing, or eliminating altogether the 2020 academic year’s Golden Week holiday, which essentially spans the first week of May. Because this long-established week-long national spring holiday period occurs early in academic years in Japan, it was determined that this would be an opportune time to investigate Japanese university students’ and instructors’ perceptions and uses of this time off from school and work duties. The research study was to involve a series of questionnaires and interviews with students and teachers both in and outside of Tokyo. Unfortunately, the full research study was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the preliminary 2019 fall semester student questionnaire had already been administered to 233 students at three Tokyo metropolitan area universities, with the main purpose of it being to gain background information on students’ typical Golden Week activities, their views regarding the holiday period, and if and how the period influences their academic studies. Results revealed that while students generally viewed Golden Week to be both fundamental and essential for engaging in non-academic pursuits, they also experienced a mixture of holiday-induced positive and negative academic and motivational disruptions. These results not only echo those revealed from research investigating the effects of vacations and holidays on work and productivity, but given the diversity of disruptions students attributed to the holiday period, they also indicate that further research into this topic is warranted.
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Conference: ACEID2025Stream: Higher education
This paper is part of the ACEID2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Rubrecht B. (2025) Japanese University Students’ Use of the Golden Week Holiday Period: A Preliminary Look ISSN: 2189-101X – The Asian Conference on Education & International Development 2025 Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 157-168) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-101X.2025.13
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-101X.2025.13
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