Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/45640

It is essential to understand lifestyles and educational values of students from various countries, in order to improve educational systems for international students at the university level. International students and Japanese graduate students were administered questionnaires. Eighteen questions relaled to the lifestyle and values on education were selected from examples from Hofstede's 4-dimensional model of differences among national cultures. Those questions were answered on five-point-scale. International students were divided into 6 groups according to their home countries: Kanji Region, Non-Kanji Region, Europe-America-Oceania, Latin-America, Middle East, and Africa. The following features were shown from the comparisons of the answers of international students in 6 regions and of Japanese students. Power distance dimension and individualism dimension showed more cultural differences. Masculinity dimension showed strong negative tenedency in all the regions, but femininity dimension showed positive and negative tendencies. International students showed strong uncertainty avoidance but Japanese students showed weak uncertainty avoidance. Japanese graduate student's values were very similar to those of Europe-America-Oceanian students. Kanji Region students had small power distance values and they require direct and explicit communication. They did not show collectivist values. Non-Kanji Region, Middle East, and Africa showed collectivist values and large power distance.