June 2013
From the 2012 NHK School Broadcast Utilization Survey
Seiji Watanabe / Sachiko I. Kodaira
“NHK School Broadcast Utilization Survey” has been regularly, biennially in recent years, conducted by the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute since 1950. The survey aims to grasp the current situation of the media environment in the classroom across Japan and to examine the whole picture of the use of NHK’s educational services including broadcasts, websites, and events, so that the findings can be utilized as basic data for discussions of educational services in the future.
In this article, the authors explore the relationships between the media usage and learning in the classroom by analyzing the results of the FY 2012 survey of elementary, junior-high, and high schools across Japan, the very first survey of this series since the completion of full-digitization of broadcasting.
It is revealed that digitization had dramatically advanced in all three types of schools, with more than 90% of the schools having access to digital terrestrial broadcasts. The proportion of schools that utilize NHK’s school broadcast TV programs and digital curriculum remained at the same level as the previous FY2010 survey, but there was a noticeable increase in the number of schools employing “NHK Digital Curriculum,” an educational service for schools available via the Internet. The survey results also suggest that “digital textbooks for teachers,” which is attracting social attention, are being disseminated in schools and that there is a growing interest in the use of new media. As the digitization of the classroom advances, NHK is required to develop and offer broadcast programs and educational content utilizing its rich video materials.