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

本研究旨在探讨美国大学助教制度的现状与问题，以及美国大学助教的培训与发展制度，为日本大学引进助教制度奠定基础。为此，三位研究人员走访了东北的五所大学和西部的三所大学，并采访了每所大学的助教和教学中心的工作人员以及一些教授。研究人员在2004年、2005年和2006年的全国教育会议上公布了这项研究的主要成果。在助教制度方面，本研究发现，尽管助教承担着比日本同行更多的实质性职责，如自己的教学会议和实验室，并为本科教育的改进做出了巨大贡献，但仍有许多助教没有得到足够的培训。本研究发现，不同高校助教制度和助教培训方案存在较大差异，自然科学类专业和人文社科类专业助教在岗位描述、经济依赖程度、助学金金额等方面存在差异。因此，本研究试图构建一个分析框架，对不同高校教学中心和院系采用的助教制度进行比较和比较。还需要进一步的研究来完成分析框架，以及调查准备未来的教员计划、助教的工会等，这些将在本研究的下一个三年阶段进行。

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.