University Students’ Life Skill Comparison in Japan and Korea

This study held two objectives. One was to clarify life skill differences between Japanese and Korean university students. The other was to gain suggestions for further development of Japanese and Korean home economics education.
A survey on life skills was delivered to university students in Japan and Korea in 2008. The survey included 82 life skills. The participants were asked the same three questions for each life skill: if the life skill was one a participant was already practicing (“Practice”), if the life skill was one the participant wanted to learn more to improve his/her life (“To be improved”), and if the life skill was one the participant expected people should learn in Home Economics (“Expectation”).
The results did not show outstanding differences with the “Practice” rates between Japan and Korea, but characterized strength and weakness of each country’s life skill “Practice.” Both Japanese and Korean participants mainly showed a greater desire to improve the life skills they indicated low “Practice” for. As well, the Korean participants revealed significantly lower “Expectation” to learn most of the life skills.
As a result, this study created several implications for Japanese and Korean home economics education. For example,one implication is necessity to increase substantively enough class hours for all school levels. Another is promoting the social understanding for the meaningfulness of home economics education.