Abstract

This study examines the concept of “active learning” in Japan. We explore the context in which useful and comprehensive concepts are replaced with subordinate concepts, called narrow interpretation. The concept of “active learning” collapsed in 2016 and was replaced by its subordinate concepts in Japanese educational curriculum. This study used newspaper articles as data, logistic regression analysis to consider the top thirty-five words, and a qualitative classification process to analyze the discourse associated with the narrow interpretation of active learning. We observed that “Japan” and “oneself” were associated with the narrow interpretation of “active learning” and were analyzed contexts where they were used qualitatively. Moreover, we found that the contexts of overgeneralization and synecdoche (a kind of figure of speech) affected narrow interpretation. This conclusion suggests that further research should be conducted to investigate the trends and patterns beyond 2017, including the period of decline, and explore potential strategies to ensure the continued relevance of important concepts.