Polling Japanese Students #1: PSP or DS? China or South Korea?

Welcome to the first installment of Polling Japanese Students, a new feature on Japan Probe in which I will post the results of surveys I give to Japanese junior high school students. Today I asked 26 second year junior high school students between the age of 13 and 14 the following two questions:

1) Which do you like better: PlayStation Portable (PSP) or Nintendo DS?

Reasons students gave for liking Nintendo DS: fun games, touch screen
Reasons students gave for liking PSP: fun games

2) Which do you like better: China or South Korea?

Reasons students gave for liking South Korea: food
Reasons students gave for liking China: food, china dress, history, tea, liked a Chinese singer

Unfortunately, I neglected to write down the gender of the students when recording results (about 60% of those polled were boys). Next time I will be sure to record everything by gender and try to get more of the reasons behind their choices.

The next edition of Polling Japanese Students will be posted next week. I am open to suggestions about what questions I should ask them, so please post some suggestions in the comments section. (Keep in mind that I am asking the kids these questions as part of a daily English conversation practice they are required to perform, so make the questions simple.)

20 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - November 1, 2006 at 3:30 pm

Categories: General Japan, Teaching English Tags:

http://darkdiamond.net Nahu

Ask them to name their top 5 favorite western countries.
WujouMao

yes this will be intresting to hear. but i’m sure almost everyone will say England, cos of David Beckham
tim

this got to be the worst poll ever done! (joking) It might not be scientific but interesting nonetheless. For some reason most Japanese people really don’t like Koreans (and no they are not the mexicans of america either) even though they are really friendly people.
http://www.japanprobe.com James (admin)

Tim:

A few boys told me they hated Korea because of the lame Korean Wave dramas that are very popular with housewives here. It seems that the first thing that came to a lot of the kids’ minds was not politics or nationalism, but food, and since Japanese kids love ramen, gyouza and other Chinese food, they picked China.

WujouMao:

Actually, Beckham has faded greatly in popularity. Recent times when I’ve asked kids about their favorite soccer player, Ronaldinho is by far the most popular. Hardly anyone talks about Beckham anymore. If anything, Harry Potter would be the far more popular symbol of England (assuming that kids even know that he’s from England. Quite a lot of kids here think he is from America).
Rip

Tim, how is it not scientific -name calling deleted by admin-?
Ken

Which do you dislike worse would be more precise.
tim

I guess some people don’t know how to read or they are just random trolls… just to let everyone know I specifically but the “(JOKING)
http://troubledyouth.org noah T

How is it not scientific? Well, first of all, only 27 kids were polled. Furthermore, were they all from the same school or geographic location, what kind of school was it, are their parents wealthy, etc.

This sounds like a _really_ rad topic, but because of a lot of missing variables, I can hardly use it’s findings in any serious discussion.
http://www.japanprobe.com James (admin)

The poll is not scientific because the students were the all the members of a homeroom class, which may or may not have been created at random( there may have been 3 or 4 students who didn’t show up). Their income levels and gender certainly varied and the selection was almost random, but Tim is right in saying it is not scientific. Regardless, I still think it’s fun to ask them questions and post the results.
http://http//isangmundo.wordpress.com 1604

It’s because Ronaldinho is the “IN” crowd now and Beckham is old news. Ask the students about this question or along the lines of, do you dislike (color) skinned people or treat them no-differently from what you do with people in general? Something like that, along the lines of it. Confusing lol.
Rip

26 out of 30 possible responses is statistically representative of your entire class and could be considered a valid scientific evaluation of your class.
http://troubledyouth.org noah T

Rip— Well, when the title of the poll is “Polling Japanese Students,” not “Polling Japanese Students in my class,” it seems a little misleading. But point taken, it’s was just meant to be a fun experiment.
Aekutopia

James, ask your students of Top 5 favourite Asian countries.
I’m quite curious to know about the result of your class’s poll.
http://www.japanprobe.com James (admin)

Noah T:

To be fair, they aren’t exactly “my class.” Another foreign teacher does the assistant English teaching for their class, but since he was busy, the students went to me for their conversation assignment.
Jay K.

well since it was mostly boys, although this does include the females also, you could poll them on the question of
“How many would like to someday date a foreigner”
http://www.drunknanpa.com/ Drunk Nanpa

I like this new feature, Japanprobe. Once I start bringing my clipboard out on weekends, I’ll have some results to post from the high school girls I survey. Of course, the questions may be a bit different…

Keep up the interesting posts!
Jay

A couple of suggestions:

PS3 vs Wii
American/UK TV vs Japanese TV
American/UK movies vs Japanese movies
American/UK music vs Japanese music

I also think it will be cool to find out their feelings on minorities in America/UK and see if they are based on the media they have access to or stereotypes.
wes

if you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go

and if they’re still young enough to give optimistic answers: what do you want to be when you grow up
Luis

Which culture do they like the best in the world?
http://www.japanprobe.com James (admin)

Lot’s of great suggestions so far: I think I’ll be able to get results for quite a few of these next week.

Keep in mind the following:
-None of these kids have ever lived abroad, and probably only one or two has been outside of Japan.
-The only exposure these kids have to foreign music, TV and culture is through Japanese TV, what movies and CD’s get wide release in Japan, or what they learn in school.
-Questions about sex or dating are not appropriate, as they would likely embarass most of these 13 year olds or, in the case of girls, make them think I am trying to ask them on a date.

Polling Japanese Students #1: PSP or DS? China or South Korea?

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