A Study of the Improvement of Undergraduate Education and Teaching Assistant Systems in the United States.

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The purpose of this research study was to investigate the actual conditions and problems of teaching assistant (TA) systems, as well as systems of training and development for TAs in universities in the United States, which became the basis for those introduced in Japanese universities. To this end, the three researchers visited five universities in the northeast and three universities in the west, and interviewed TAs and staff of the center for teaching and learning at each university, along with some professors. The researchers presented major findings of the research at national education conferences in 2004,2005,and 2006.In terms of TA systems, this study found that, although TAs had far more substantial responsibilities, such as teaching sessions and labs by themselves than the Japanese counterparts, and made great contributions to the improvement of undergraduate education, there were still many TAs who taught without sufficient training. This study revealed that the TA systems and training programs for TAs were quite different in different universities, and that differences existed between natural science majors and humanities and social science majors in terms of job descriptions, the degrees of financial reliance on TA positions, the amount of stipend, etc. Therefore, this study attempted to make an analytical framework to compare and contrast different TA training systems employed by the centers of teaching and learning and departments in different universities. Further research is needed to complete the analytical framework, as well as to investigate on preparing future faculty programs, unionization of TAs, etc., which are to be conducted during the next 3-year phase of this study.