Sustainability of Equal Evaluations Among Teachers of First-Year Students in Higher Education

This study examined the sustainability of higher education assessments at Kobe Tokiwa University, where a new first-year education program began in 2017. The program contained two courses titled Manaburu I and II. Here, we developed the word “Manaburu” as a portmanteau of the Japanese words for “learning” (manabu) and “able.” The term “Manaburu” thus indicates that a “student is able to learn by themselves.” The courses entailed that approximately 20 teachers dealt with around 350 students. Our research question was concerned with the sustainability of teachers conducting equal evaluations for first-year education students. We investigated this through a Shapiro-Wilk test to confirm data related to student grades according to a Gaussian (normal) distribution. However, these data did not depend on a Gaussian distribution. We thus performed a non-parametric multiple comparison test and Steel-Dwass test against whole pairs for both Manaburu I and II in 2018. Results showed that equal evaluations were sustainable for teachers of first-year education students. This paper specifically discusses two reasons for this.