Kitamura: Developing#########,
et al. STEAMS human resources

Japanese Journal of Physical Education and Sport for Higher Education, 20

Original Research
Japanese Journal of Physical Education and Sport for Higher Education , 21: 29-40.
Ⓒ2024 Japanese Association of University Physical Education and Sport

Developing STEAMS (Science, Technology,
Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, andSports) human resources throughuniversity physical education classes:
Qualitative analysis of perceptions of learning
Katsuro KITAMURA
College of Science and Technology, Nihon University

Abstract
This study considered the significance of learning through the body in university physical education by examining
university students’ perspectives on learning and its role in STEAM(Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, andMathematics) education. Such an attempt was not simply to explore the contents and methods of university classes
and propose solutions to problems, but also to question the existing framework of university physical education
learning, to find a fusion point between university physical education learning and STEAM education learning, andto examine how to recognize the value of university physical education learning today as one perspective, given
the shift toward learning that creates value. Eighty-two first-year students who took a practical physical education
class at a science and engineering university agreed to participate in the survey. Interviews were conducted at theteaching site using face-to-face, one-on-one, semi-structured, open-ended, in-depth, and focus group. Informal
onsite interviews were conducted during breaks. As a result of the analysis of university students’ perceptions ofuniversity physical education learning obtained through interviews, it was found that learning through the body andexercise has a relational structure in which students deepen further questions through various ways of knowing,
and experience joy in doing so. It was found that the uniqueness based on physicality and awareness of the body
expressed by science and engineering university students’ view of university physical education could be positioned as STEAMS(STEAM + Sports) education that develops a new element of creativity in STEAM education. It
was inferred that there are clues to the uniqueness of university physical education learning in these points. Thissuggests that in terms of fostering creative human resources at universities, it is important to set up learning opportunities rich in such diversity, guarantee opportunities to deepen questions, and question the nature of STEAMS
education that accumulates experiences that fascinate people to create.
Keywords
STEAMS education, qualitative data analysis, perceptions of learning

Corresponding author: Katsuro KITAMURA Email: kitamura.katsurou@nihon-u.ac.jp

Introduction

Advanced technology has fully penetrated the cultureof most societies; and the increasing maturity of artificial
intelligence, Internet of Things, and big data has necessitated IT-based human resources to promote industrial
structural reform (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology, 2018). The heightened demandfor “science, technology, engineering, art, and mathemat-

ics,” collectively known as STEAM education, as well as
design thinking indicates this new direction—one that isbeyond the framework of the conventional “humanities
and sciences” in the general education realm.
Japan is among the countries that have prioritized
STEAM education, as evidenced by a series of new curriculum reforms that emphasize inquiry-based and creative learning over simple knowledge transfer (Curriculum29Japanese Journal of Physical Education and Sport for Higher Education, 21 : 2024

Division, Elementary and Secondary Education Bureau,
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology, 2021). The indication from the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(2018) on learning that integrates the humanities and sciences and that from the Ministry of Economy, Trade, andIndustry on the importance of learning as a cycle of“knowing” and “creating,” are two such examples.
It is important to view STEAM education from a perspective that places the arts at the center of interdisciplinary education and “emphasizes the creative,
cross-disciplinary, problem-solving, issue-based, andproject-based aspects of learning” (Henriksen, 2017),
rather than one that merely incorporates the arts into sciences and mathematics.
“Arts” can be defined as design thinking, music,
visual arts, dance, and theater; it may also conceptuallyencompass the body, liberal arts, and civic culture(Yamazaki et al., 2016). In our examination of the role ofuniversity physical education as a liberal arts education,
we define the arts as “creative thinking and expressionthat includes the body, the arts, and the liberal arts.” Wethus define STEAM education as a cross-disciplinary,comprehensive, and exploratory educational frameworkthat creates new value through the fusion of scientific,
physical, artistic, and creative thinking.
Broadly, there are two approaches to STEAM education: (1) blended education that combines the arts withSTEM education promotion as the axis for learning issues,and (2) inquiry-based learning that transcends the framework of existing subject areas. This study explores thepotential of STEAM education as an inquiry-based learning approach that transcends existing frameworks in orderto understand university liberal arts education and physical education from the perspective of its multifaceted
nature. Our intent is to contribute toward fostering humanresources that can demonstrate creativity.
One such method in STEAM education is the design
thinking, which emphasizes keywords, such as intuition,
emotion, value, ideas, and transmission. A feature of thisapproach is that students are actively conscious of beingtaught, studying, or remembering, and that they are having
fun, discovering problems, forming ideas, giving shape toideas, and creating things. The directional objective of
STEAM human resources development depends on how
students demonstrate their creativity autonomously, andhow doing so promotes independent and thorough study.
However, theoretical class research on the development of
STEAM education in Japan is scarce (Shirai, 2020). While
such discussions on STEAM education are expanding inuniversity education, the role of physical education in thisfield is also being reexamined.
30

Within the Japanese context, we do find a modest
contribution of important studies, such as an examinationof the positioning of university physical education(Japanese Association of University Physical Educationand Sport, 2010), on issues based on the current status ofuniversity physical education classes (Nara and Kiuchi,
2021; Hashimoto et al. 2012; Sugiyama et al. 2001; Ishida
et al. 2002 etc.), on the subjective benefits for students(Nishida et al., 2015), and on the methodological outcomes and significance of classes in university physicaleducation practical skills (Nara and Kiuchi, 2020; Kiuchi
et al., 2009).
The main issue we face is the significance and effectiveness of university physical education classes. We
believe that university physical education in the futuresociety should be considered from the lens of STEAM
because such education prioritizes creative humanresources, citizens with expertise and culture, and holistic
education through the cultivation of the mind and bodyrequired for future university education. Therefore, it isimportant to re-examine university physical education,
which has the unique characteristics of learning throughthe body and movement, in the discussion of STEAM
education in order to fully grasp the significance of university physical education.
In two separate studies, Kitamura and Takahashi(2018) and Kitamura (2020) propose integrating scientificand sensory knowledge into the classroom. Examining thestate of university physical education within the STEAM
education framework, he suggests the following three
directions: (1) classes that utilize “knowledge” related touniversity physical education, such as physical educationand mathematics, physical education and physics, andphysical education and cognitive science; (2) classes thatutilize “knowledge” within university physical education
by integrating physical education and specialized
approaches such as movement analysis and tactical development; and (3) classes that uncover “knowledge” inherent in university physical education, such as the transfer
of tacit knowledge and the verbalization of tricks(Kitamura, 2020). However, the learning experiences ofuniversity students have seldom been explored through afocus on the arts; how STEAM education is integrated
and developed with physical education learning remains
unclear owing to a paucity of studies.
This study clarifies how college students in scienceand engineering departments view college athletics. We
investigate their perspectives on learning, and reconsider
the nature of college education for the development of
STEAM human resources. In other words, this study
seeks to understand the significance of learning throughthe body in college athletes from the perspective of

Kitamura: Developing STEAMS human resources

STEAM education by examining the views of learning
held by college students.
The qualitative research method is appropriate to
analyze factors related to participants’ inner experiencesin university physical education classes. In general, thepurpose of quantitative research is to identify general laws
and, based on these laws, explain events in various fields
and predict events that will occur in various situations(Kubota, 1997). Qualitative research can help us “understand how people perceive reality in a given situation andhow they interact with that reality, respecting their subjective positions” (Kubota, 1997). Tagaki (2015) astutely
notes that qualitative research is not a positivist position,
which is the perception of the real world as somethingobservable and measurable, but that the real world issocially constructed by people, and truth is an interpretation constructed by gathering information through mutual
negotiations between the researcher and the participant.
Informed by such constructivism, we employ qualitative
research to understand and describe college students’learning experiences.

Methods

Participants
Eighty-two first-year students who took a practicalphysical education class at a science and engineering university in the Kanto region in 20×× agreed to participate
in the survey. The physical education classes taken by theparticipants in this study were elective courses in theliberal arts education curriculum offered in the second
semester of the first year (September to January of the following year). The subject of this study was a weekly faceto-face class that aimed to improve basic physical fitness
and acquire basic motor skills through basic and gamestyle practice in ball games (soft football and tennis).
Data collection
When conducting qualitative research, it is necessary
to conduct interviews in a “natural state” (Kubota, 1997).
In other words, “a keen methodological stance on the relationship between oneself and others and reflexivity”(Yamada, 2004) should dictate how one relates to theresearch participant, or “how the researcher contextualizes and interacts with the participants determine thequality of the field and data” (Yamamoto, 2004).
Therefore, the researcher and participants were positioned
in the natural state of a university physical education
class, and the role of the researcher in the field was to act
as a member of the class. That is, the researcher’s position
is to “take the role originally planned in the field andengage with the participant through that role” (Yamamoto,2004).

An overview of STEAM education was provided toparticipants in the first class. Prior to the interviews, thepurpose and method of this study were explained to allparticipants, and the interviews were conducted before
and after the classes. After a preliminary explanation of
the purpose and method of the survey, interviews wereconducted by the author, who had been practicing qualitative research for 25 years before and after the classes,
according to a developed interview guide. The interview
questions were structured into three types: main questions
that addressed central themes; follow-up questions thatwere asked in response to the core question and clarified
in greater detail by repeating keywords or phrases in the
response; and a probe that asked for more detail, traced its
meaning, and developed new related questions. The interview was conducted such that the interviewer could moveflexibly from one question to another depending on theflow of the interview.
The main questions are structured as follows:(1) What do you consider the characteristics ofscience and engineering disciplines in universities and university physical education? Pleasefeel free to tell us anything that may come to
mind.
(2) 
What do you think are the points of contact
between science, engineering, and university
physical education?
Following the responses to these core questions, follow-up questions were developed. Examples of the follow-up questions were as follows: “Can you describe yourfeelings at that moment?”
Interviews were conducted at the teaching site using
face-to-face, one-on-one, semi-structured, open-ended,in-depth, and focus group. Informal onsite interviews
were conducted during breaks. Each interview lasted
approximately 5–15 min and was conducted multiple
times during each class period.
Although the number of people who could be interviewed at each class session was limited, all participants
were interviewed throughout the ten classes. In terms ofthe variation in the participants’ learning experiences at
the university owing to the time difference between the 10classes, the participants had experienced learning in their
specialized fields at the university for six months prior to
the interview, and their speech was based on such an
experience, so there was no time difference.
Rather than taking the intentionalist position thatmeaning is an entity that independently exists inside anaction and is discoverable, we decided to focus on themutual exchange nature of the interview from the standpoint that the interviewer and the participant jointly generate the narrative, and to include all utterances in the31Japanese Journal of Physical Education and Sport for Higher Education, 21 : 2024

analysis.
During the interview, the participants were informedthat their cooperation in the survey was voluntary, thatthey could refuse or withdraw at any time, and that the
study would use anonymized data. Consent to use personal data for research purposes was obtained throughethical considerations.
Data analysis
We followed the qualitative data analysis methods
described by Côté et al. (1993). After the interviews, theaudio data were immediately transcribed and a verbatim
transcript was generated. After carefully reading the verbatim transcripts in context, the parts of the text that
expressed the participants’ experiences and perceptions oflearning at the university, which was the purpose of thisstudy, were divided into a single coherent group of sentences as a data unit of meaning. The goal is to distancethe analyst from the linguistic data by separating themfrom their context. Data obtained from informal onsite
interviews were used to create meaning units. Eachmeaning unit was assigned a title as a straightforward
expression of semantic cohesion of the meaning unit.
Next, we grouped meaning units into subcategories byconsidering the context of the utterance, and then grouped
them into several subcategories with high affinity andsimilarity. The resulting subcategories were groupedbased on their high affinity. The concepts were integrated
into categories, while considering the level of abstraction
and awareness of the unification of dimensions. Figure 1
illustrates the process of our analysis. The upper row ofeach process shows the content of the analysis, the left
column of the lower row shows the analysis, and the rightcolumn shows the products created by the analysis.
Validation methodology
To verify the methodological quality of the qualitative research, we examined the quality of the research andthe certainty of the data analysis by means of “credibility”
and “certainty,” than by “reliability” and “validity,” as inquantitative research. This is because quantitative andqualitative research use different paradigms: objectivism
and constructivism. That is, in qualitative research, “people’s experiences (reality) do not exist as facts independently of their participants, but are viewed as pluralistic things that are subjectively interpreted and internalized
through social contexts and interactions with others”(Imafuku, 2021), which requires different evaluation
criteria than those of reliability and validity based on thequantitative research paradigm.
In this study, with regard to “whether the research
results accurately depict the ’truth’ constructed by thepeople being studied” (Kubota, 1997) and “the verification of authenticity in terms of the realism of the dataobtained” (Flick and Oda, 2011), we think that the interviewer and the participants themselves reflected on theirexperiences while building a relationship through multiple interviews. In the building process, they reflected on
their experiences and generated narratives that were inline with the facts of their experiences, and the credibilityof the data was enhanced through the accumulation of
thick descriptions.

Interview
One to one, semi-structured, open-ended, in-depth

Voice data

Textualization
Contextual understanding, semantic interpretation

Verbal text

Creating meaning unit
Context, one unit one meaning

Meaning unit

Thematization
Subheadings, Contextual Considerations

Tag

Subcategory creation
Dialogue lineage, mindfulness

Category creation

Meaningful affinity, dimensional unity

Figure 1 Data analysis process
32

Subcategory

Category

Kitamura: Developing STEAMS human resources

Thus, in qualitative research, “meaning is not areality that is kept inside the human being, but emerges in
the interaction between the narrator and the listener”(Yamada, 2004), “truth or fact is assumed to depend oncontext” (Tagaki, 2015), “the narrative that is the object ofanalysis is not a projection of the narrator’s internal state,but is constituted by the interaction with the listener, thesocio-cultural context that surrounds both” (Tagaki,2015), “the narratives that are the object of analysis arecomposed of the interaction with the listener and thesocio-cultural context that surrounds both, rather thanbeing a projection of the narrator’s internal state” (Tagaki,2015), and by “establishing a relationship of empathy andtrust with the research participant” (Kubota, 1997),“wrong or distorted information is not received” (Kubota,1997).
Regarding the certainty of the data and procedures,
which “relates to whether or not the research methodology was rigorously conducted” (Kubota, 1997), the data
analysis process was shared with multiple researcherswith more than 20 years of experience in qualitative
research methodology, and the analysis was conducted
through multiple discussions and multiple validations.
This made it possible to “ensure that the researcher’s personal values and biases are not mixed in with the researchfindings and is thought to have increased certainty regarding the data analysis process” (Maxwell, 2013). To
increase certainty, the analysis was supervised by anexpert who has been conducting qualitative research forover 20 years.

Results

Our analysis identified 194 meaning units. All
meaning units were classified into six subcategories:
knowing with the five senses, various ways of knowing,
the diffusion of ideas, exploring questions, excitement andimmersive pleasant experiences, and joy after suffering.
These were further classified into three categories: various
way-of-knowing experiences, exploratory experiences,
and appealing experiences. The following sections discuss
university students’ views on learning based on these categories. For convenience, categories are marked withbrackets [×], subcategories with double quotations “×”,tags with chevrons <×>, and meaning units with single
quotations ‘×’. Regarding the number of responses to anutterance, the object of consideration in this study is the“meaning” in the response, and “even a concept foundonly once is evaluated as an important concept depending
on its comprehensiveness, symbolism, association withother concepts, persuasiveness to events and actions, anda strong relationship with known important concepts”(Otani, 2017). From our standpoint, we will not indicate

the number of times but only the category items.
Various ways of knowing experiences
The participants described the nature of university
physical education, with its “various ways of knowing,”
as a characteristic of learning through the body, where
awareness and understanding are obtained through“knowing with the five senses.”
The category of [Various ways of knowing experiences], which integrates these narratives, consists of two
subcategories, “knowing with the five senses” and“various ways of knowing,” and was created to express
ways of knowing, including ways of utilizing one’s own
body, such as positioning the senses in university physicaleducation learning, understanding and mastering movements through the body, experiencing them, formulating
strategies for achieving tasks, and materializing themthrough expression using one’s body.
One of the participants described the experience ofsensory “knowing” as follows.
 o master movement, it is important to know the senT
sations of the body. The sensation can be visual orkinesthetic, and differs from person to person. Even
if you understand it in your head, it is difficult to
express it with your body.
Another participant, referring to the sensation of thetools extending to the body, said: In physical education class, I tried an event that
I had never experienced before. I felt uncomfortablewith all the movements, but at first the ball did not hit
the racket at all, and I felt the racket was in the way.
But gradually the racket began to feel like an extension of my hand, and eventually the moment the ball
hit the racket it felt like it was hitting my hand.
	 One participant also described a sensory experience as follows.
 here are times when I feel the sensation of my own
Tbody. It is as if they become one with their own bodyand communicate with it. It’s like a flash of inspiration, or a sensory understanding, or something likethat.
One participant who talked about the knack of movement in relation to learning through the senses said
he knack of movement requires subtle sensoryTcontrol, and it takes time to be able to do that […] t33

Japanese Journal of Physical Education and Sport for Higher Education, 21 : 2024



Table 1 Hierarchical category listing
Category

Subcategory

Representative meaning units
To master movement, it is important to know the sensations of the body.

Knowing with thesensesGradually the racket began to feel like an extension of my hand, and eventually the moment the ball
hit the racket it felt like it was hitting my hand.
I have the same kind of intuitive inspiration, the same kind of highly accurate sense of how somethingshould be done.

Various waysof knowing
experiences

There are times when I feel the sensation of my own body. It’s like a flash of inspiration, or a sensory
understanding, or something like that.
Diverse ways ofknowing

It is important to have a sense of detail, as well as a sense of flow, so to speak, in the image of theentire movement and how to exert strong and flexible force.
There is an aspect of learning physical education in which actual movements are repeated over andover again to get a sense of what is going on in the body. This is what makes it different from
specialized studies.
Even if you feel like you have some idea of what you are doing, when you actually do it, you may findthat you are not quite up to speed yet, or you may discover new issues to be addressed. It’s like you
become aware of it.

Diffusing ideas

Exploratory
experiences

I hit the ball with all my senses. In doing so, I find that what I “think I am doing” is not what I am
actually doing.
I need to have a variety of ways of looking at the ball: from the distance, outside the court, where I
can anticipate the trajectory of the ball, position my body on the court, see the ball and hit it; and fromthe inside, where I can get inside the racket and feel my own body.
In specialized studies, when I get absorbed in something, my perspective sometimes becomes narrow
and I get stuck, so I try to distance myself a little and look at it from different fields and perspectives.
I often make mistakes. When that happens, I think hard about why I made the mistake, where thecause is, what I can do to improve, and what I need to pay attention to.

Deepening inquiry

I think it is important to correct the misalignment in order to understand and be able to do so. The
first prerequisite is to become aware of the misalignment. After that, I think it is a good idea togradually focus on it.
It is a very good cue for me to think and practice on my own, as my peers point out things that I am
not aware of.
It is not just trying to reproduce a given correct movement, but the process of thinking this way andthat, not giving up, and continuing to look for ways to do it better, or to do it better, is fun.

Fascinating
experiences

Exciting andIn my case, I like to know the unknown. I think learning about physical education would be more
immersive pleasant exciting if there was a way of knowing that stimulates curiosity.
experience
I was depressed because I could not hit the ball very well. One day, I swung the bat as hard as I
could and the ball hit the ground. At that time, I was more happy that my friends were so happy thanthat I got a hit.
In class, I often get stuck because I can’t do the move I want to do well. At such times, I would
observe the movements of my classmates and try to get a feel for them by tracing the movementswith my imagination. When I was able to do it, I was very happy.
Joy after suffering

It is difficult because even one’s own body does not always move as one would like, but when one
overcomes this difficulty and is able to do so, one feels as if one has finally connected with one’s own
body.
If you don’t try to figure it out right away, but keep asking why and why not, you may have an
epiphany. It is important to struggle.

is just like studying in a specialty field: you accumulate what you can do and then you understand thewhole picture.
He overlapped the importance of accumulating
through trial and error with the study of specialty fields inscience and engineering.
Another participant, in discussing the “various waysof knowing,” mentioned learning the tricks of the trade,34

saying,I t is important to have a sense of detail, as well as asense of flow, so to speak, in the image of the entire
movement and how to exert strong and flexible force.
Another participant said, “There are things that look
like actual body movements and things that don’t look
like the sensation of moving,” and he described “various
ways of knowing” as a characteristic of physicalKitamura: Developing STEAMS human resources

education learning, saying, “We grasp the sense ofknowing and being able to do things in various ways, suchas seeing, moving, feeling, imitating, touching, and soon.” This is a characteristic of physical education. One
participant described this point as “something like tacitknowledge.”
The recognition that a sensitive and comprehensive
sensory understanding, represented by such tacit knowledge, is required in the physical education of university
students is also discussed in conjunction with the study of
specialized fields in science and engineering. In thisregard, one of the participants said the following.
 hen I study science and engineering, I have theWsame kind of intuitive inspiration, the same kind of
highly accurate sense of how something should be
done. I can’t really explain it, but it’s like I know what
it is.
Another participant said,In science and engineering studies, you learn bybreaking down phenomena into their elements,
reconstructing them, and advancing yourunderstanding.
In science and engineering studies, there is a way tolearn by breaking down a phenomenon into its elements, reconstructing them, and advancing yourunderstanding, but there is also a way to suddenly
understand. It is the same feeling as when you areplaying in gymnastics and you think, “Oh, this is it.”do something just by doing that. I think the difference
is in the repetition of exercises, or in the acquisitionof actual movements over and over again to get asense of what is going on in the body, or in the knowledge of the body.
Exploratory experiences
When students find clues to solving a physical exercise task sensitively and intuitively through a variety ofknowing experiences, they become deeply involved inproblem-solving behaviors, such as “I want to be able to
do it somehow,” “I want to become better at other movements,” and “There must be another way to do it.”
The category of “exploratory experience,” in whichthese narratives are integrated, consists of two subcategories, “diffusion of ideas” and “exploring questions,” andwas created to represent the experience of further deepening the knowing and understanding experience, generating various ideas by thinking in various directions, andderiving the correct answer from the problem situation athand. One participant described the experience of “diffusing ideas” as follows.
 ven if you feel like you have some idea of what youE
are doing, when you actually do it, you may find thatyou are not quite up to speed yet, or you may discover new issues to be addressed. It’s like you becomeaware of it. The reality of movement is complex andvarious factors are interrelated, so it is not simple. I
feel that through actual movement, we can solve
each problem one by one and come to understand.

One student described the difference between learning in physical education and learning in a specialized
area of science and engineering as follows.

Another participant described the idea of using
various senses to perceive one’s own movements frommultiple perspectives as follows: hile professional learning has an image of concepW
tualization and understanding of knowledge andskills, there seems to be a gap between that understanding and the reality of movement learning inphysical education. It is as if we can’t do somethingeven if we know what we are doing. I think that is thedifference.

I hit the ball with all my senses. In doing so, I findthat what I “think I am doing” is not what I am actually doing.

Another student described the differences between
science and engineering as follows:In my specialized studies, I learn by learning fromvarious people, reading books, and actually touching
and understanding through experiments and observations. In physical education, I feel that it is surprisingly difficult to reach the point of being able to

One participant captured his body and movements
by widening and changing his perspective. In this regard,
he states:I need to have a variety of ways of looking at theball: from the distance, outside the court, where I can
anticipate the trajectory of the ball, position my bodyon the court, see the ball and hit it; and from theinside, where I can get inside the racket and feel myown body.
Another participant, referring to his trial-and-error
35Japanese Journal of Physical Education and Sport for Higher Education, 21 : 2024

experience, described how “deepening inquiry” leads tothe learning of movement.
I often make mistakes. When that happens, I think
hard about why I made the mistake, where the cause
is, what I can do to improve, and what I need to pay
attention to. Learning through trial and error is also
a way to accumulate experience as I gain the knackof doing things my own way.
One mentioned the usefulness of advice from others
to “deepen the inquiry,” stating,I think it’s a good thing to have advice from others to
help you deepen the inquiry.
One of the participants contrasted this experience oflearning through repeated “diffusion of ideas” and“exploring of questions” with learning in a specialized
field of science and engineering. He said,

subcategories: exciting and immersive pleasant experiences, and joy after suffering. They were created toexpress their experiences of fun, excitement, accomplishment, and self-competence through their efforts to deal
with the challenges they faced.
Regarding the enjoyment of physical exercise, one
participant described the experience of being “excited”
while experiencing the joy of physical exercise as follows:I think the fun of physical exercise is in trying tofigure out what the goal should be. It is not just trying
to reproduce a given correct movement, but theprocess of thinking this way and that, not giving up,
and continuing to look for ways to do it better, or to
do it better, is fun. Maybe that’s what it means tolearn through one’s own body.
Another participant mentioned an experience inwhich he felt great joy when his peers praised him forsomething he had done, and described his “feelings offun” as follows:I n specialized studies, when I get absorbed in something, my perspective sometimes becomes narrow
and I get stuck, so I try to distance myself a little andlook at it from different fields and perspectives. In asense, this may be the same as learning about
movement.

I was depressed because I could not hit the ball very
well. One day, I swung the bat as hard as I could andthe ball hit the ground. At that time, I was more
happy that my friends were so happy than that I got
a hit.

However, one student described the difference
between learning in physical education and learning in a
specialized area of science and engineering as follows.

Another participant, referring to his experience of
finally succeeding after repeated failures and hard work,
describes the “joy after suffering” as follows.

 here is a gap between what we think we understandT
and what we really understand, a gap between what
we think we understand and what we do not understand, and such gaps also exist in professional learning. But I think the discrepancy is greater whenlearning about movement.

I n class, I often get stuck because I can’t do the move
I want to do well. At such times, I would observe themovements of my classmates and try to get a feel forthem by tracing the movements with my imagination.
When I was able to do it, I was very happy. This is
one of the charms of learning together with friends,
rather than alone in university physical education.

I think it is important to correct the misalignment inorder to understand and be able to do so. The firstprerequisite is to become aware of the misalignment.
After that, I think it is a good idea to gradually focus
on it.
Fascinating experience
All of the participants mentioned the attractivenessof successful experiences, the “feeling of fun,” and the“sense of fulfillment of having done something.” They
also describe the emotional impact of university physicaleducation and its influence on stimulating learning. The
fascinating experience category consists of two
36

One of the participants contrasted these “excitement”
experiences and “joy after suffering” with learning in thespecialized fields of science and engineering: earning about your favorite specialty is exciting. It
L
is intriguing and intellectually stimulating. In mycase, I like to know the unknown. I think learning
about physical education would be more exciting if
there were ways to learn that pique my curiosity. For
example, it would be nice to learn about the materials engineering of balls and bats, the mathematics offormations, the mechanics of the human body, and so

Kitamura: Developing STEAMS human resourceson.
Another student described the difference between
learning in physical education and learning in a specialized area of science and engineering as follows: hysical education differs from specialized studies inPthat it involves the use of the body. In addition, it isdifficult because even one’s own body does notalways move as expected, but when one overcomes
this difficulty and is able to do so, one feels as if one
has finally connected with one’s own body. I don’t
think this is a specialized study.
Finally, one participant mentioned the importance ofthe experience of struggling in learning, saying, “I thinkit’s important to have the experience of struggling.”I can’t do a movement that I can’t do right away. So,
I try to find out what it feels like while accepting thestate of not being able to do something in a certain
way. Then, I feel as if I can suddenly understandsomething, and that is when I start to be able to do it.
The same thing happens in professional learning. If
you don’t try to figure it out right away, but keep
asking why and why not, you may have an epiphany.
It is important to struggle.

Discussion

This study considered the significance of learning
through the body in university physical education by
examining university students’ perspectives on learningand its role in STEAM education. Such an attempt was
not simply to explore the contents and methods of university classes and propose solutions to problems, but also toquestion the existing framework of university physicaleducation learning, to find a fusion point between university physical education learning and STEAM education
learning, and to examine how to recognize the value of
university physical education learning today as one perspective, given the shift toward learning that createsvalue.
The results of the analysis revealed that science andengineering students’ perceptions of university physicaleducation comprised three categories: various knowledge
experiences, exploratory experiences, and attractive
experiences.
The participants of this study, university students inthe fields of science and engineering, described theirexperiences of learning as college athletes, repeatedly
pursued exploratory questions, and explored a variety ofideas while deepening their inquiry into the causes offailure and the nature of problems in their physical exercise experiences that did not easily lead to problem
solving. Simultaneously, they repeatedly took a bird’s eyeview of the whole and a concentrated, in-depth pursuit of
the particular. Such repeated experiences of diffused andconvergent thinking are critical to cultivating creativity in
STEAM education (Watanabe et al., 2019) and common
sensory learning in health and physical education (Suzuki
et al., 2014). In this regard, the participants reconfirmed
the characteristics of university physical education learning as the construction of a new relationship through thebody, in which they faced their own bodies and senses bysolving problems such as unknown exercise experiences,various discomforts, and gaps in body sensation felt in theprocess of acquiring movements. At the same time, such
points are seen as places for intuitive understanding andsensory learning experiences that can be applied to specialized learning in the science and engineering fields.
They are challenged by the prospect of “I wonder if I cando this if I do this and that” and “Maybe I can do it if I do
it like this,” and by solving problems. They were trying tosolve problems with their intuition, “Maybe if we do it
this way, we can do it.” This was not simply a process ofblind trial and error with repeated failures, but rather aseries of problem solving based on intuition and tacitknowledge, which led to a double-loop structure of learning that generated a new learning loop by involving
sensory information in the hypothesis-testing loop
(Kitamura, 2021).
Hiraku et al. (2020) note that these double-loop
learning experiences are characteristic of the view oflearning in college athletes, and it can be inferred that thisis a factor highly relevant to the art approach in STEAM
education. It is a way of learning that involves awarenessand understandability through the senses, as well as
knowledge and skills that can be understood logically;
through many failures, it helps in integrating various waysof knowing and leads to comprehensive judgment(Kitamura and Takahashi, 2018), in which knowledge isbased on the body.
This double-loop learning experience is common to
the intuitive understanding of science and engineering;that is, it is an intuitive design thinking style, in which thewhole is grasped by inspiration rather than by breaking it
down into its elements and reconstructing it for understanding (Shirai, 2020; Kitamura, 2020). Furthermore,such body-based learning experiences lead to self-growthin that they bring about inquiry-based learning with diversity and comprehensiveness. This can be inferred from thefact that the participants felt a sense of self-competence as
they became aware of their progress through accomplishment and success, and experienced an exciting emotional37Japanese Journal of Physical Education and Sport for Higher Education, 21 : 2024

experience in which they were exposed to the guts ofmovement, which led them to engage in further learning
physical exercise with rich diversity and sophistication.
Based on this discussion, we believe that the double-loop learning experience expressed in body-basedlearning and the design thinking style expressed in sensory
awareness through body movements, which are expressedin university students’ views of university physical education, may be positioned as a STEAMS education thatdevelops a new element of creativity thereof. Here, wefind a clue to the uniqueness of the study of college physical education.
Figure 2 shows the relationship between the three
categories as a tentative plan for STEAMS education in
university physical education. The three categories in thecenter represent the elements of the participants’ views onlearning college athletics. STEAM education, as professional learning in the field of science and engineering that
includes an element of the arts, overlaps with the view oflearning among college athletes. Further, STEAMS education is presented to overlap with this view of learning
among college athletes and STEAM education. The
factors that relate learning in science and engineering
fields, which are at the heart of STEAM education, tolearning in university physical education have been shown
to be unique, based on physicality in university physicaleducation and awareness of the body.

Conclusion

The structure of the relationship between science andengineering students’ perspectives on learning in college
athletes in this study was inferred to be one that deepened
students’ inquiries through various ways of knowing andexperiencing joy in doing so. The results suggest that it isimportant to set up learning opportunities rich in suchdiversity, guarantee opportunities to deepen questions,and question the nature of STEAMS education that accumulates experiences that motivate people to create anddevelop creative human resources at universities. Practicalimplementation and verification of the concrete development of these issues will remain future issues.

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by Japanese Association of
University Physical Education and Sports Grant No.94.

Figure 2 STEAMS model
38

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（Received: August 5, 2022, Accepted: April 4, 2023）

39

Japanese Journal of Physical Education and Sport
大学体育スポーツ学研究
for Higher Education,，21：2024
21 : 2024


北村

原著
大学体育スポーツ学研究 ，21: 29-40.
©2024 全国大学体育連合 https://daitairen.or.jp/

大学体育授業による
STEAMS（Science, Technology,
Engineering, Arts, Mathematics andSports）人材育成の展開：
学習観の質的分析
北村勝朗
日本大学理工学部

要旨

本稿の目的は，大学生のもつ学び観の検討を通して，大学体育における身体を通した学びの新たな意義を検討し，STEAM 教育（Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics 教育：理数科学的思考と身体・芸術・創作的思考の融合により新たな価値創造を生み出す領域横断的で総合的な探索的教育の枠組み）の中に位置づけることにある．そうした試みは，価値創造型の学びへの転換が目指されている今日において，既存の大学体育の学びの枠組みを問い直し，その一つの視点として，大学体育の学びと STEAM 教育の学びの融合点を見出し，どのように大学体育の学びの今日的価値を認めていくのかを検討するといった意味を有している．理工系大学で体育実技の授業を履修した１年次学生82 名を対象とし，対面による１対１の半構造的，自由回答的，深層的インタビューを実施した．インタビューにより得られた大学生の大学体育の学びに対する認知の分析を行った結果，身体および運動を通した学びは，多様な知り方を通し，更なる問いを深め，そこに喜びを体感するという関係性の構造をもつ点が見いだされた．そこから，理工系大学生の大学体育の学び観によって表現される，身体性を基軸とした独自性，および身体の気づきを通した気づきが，STEAM 教育に新たな創造性の要素を展開させる STEAMS(STEAM + Sports) 教育として位置づけられる可能性が見出された．ここに大学体育の学びの独自性の手がかりが推察された．そこから，大学における創造的人材の育成という点で，こうした多様性に富んだ学びの場の設定と，問い深める機会の保証，そして創造に魅了される体験を蓄積する STEAMS 教育の在り方を問うことが重要である点が示唆された．
キーワード

STEAM 教育，質的分析，学習観責任著者：北村勝朗

40

Email:

kitamura.katsurou@nihon-u.ac.jp