departmental bulletin paper

Departmental Bulletin Paper

Text

言語文化共同研究プロジェクト. 2026, 2025, p. 24-32

From Task Engagement to Task Worthwhileness : Toward Activity-Specific Yarigai from an Ikigai Perspective

Japanese

Text

2026-05-31

応用言語学における理論と実践 : 研究と教育を通して

This paper argues for the need to distinguish domain-general Academic Yarigai from activity-specific yarigai in educational research and proposes the Activity-Specific Yarigai-9 Scale (ASYS) as a task-level complement to the Academic Yarigai-9 Scale (AYS; Kanazawa, 2025a). Academic Yarigai offers an integrative account of meaningful academic experience by bringing together intrinsic fulfillment, intellectual stimulation, personal growth, social contribution, flow, recognition, overcoming challenges, real-world relevance, and purpose of learning. Yet the original framework also repeatedly emphasizes immediate and task-related fulfillment, suggesting that yarigai is not only a broad academic orientation but also a situated experience arising from particular activities. To develop this argument, the present paper draws on research on task engagement, which treats engagement not merely as a stable disposition but as learners’ involvement in a specific task or series of tasks. Recent work has shown that engagement may have both trait-like and state-like qualities and that task-level measurement is necessary for understanding how learners’ involvement varies dynamically across activities and contexts. In light of this, the paper introduces the ASYS as a task-level indicator of whether a specific activity is perceived as enjoyable, supportive of growth, socially meaningful, challenging yet fulfilling, relevant beyond the classroom, and aligned with broader personal goals. It also presents preliminary empirical findings from Japanese undergraduate learners of English. Across three administrations, the ASYS demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency, differed significantly among three active learning tasks, and showed strong correlations with task engagement on each occasion. Mean ASYS scores were also moderately related to the domain-general AYS and to foreign language enjoyment, while showing no significant association with broad classroom engagement. These findings suggest that the ASYS may serve as a promising measure of task worthwhileness and a meaningful companion construct to task engagement.

10.18910/104902

104902

From Task Engagement to Task Worthwhileness : Toward Activity-Specific Yarigai from an Ikigai Perspective

Kanazawa, Yu

大阪大学大学院人文学研究科言語文化学専攻

Japanese

2026-05-31

言語文化共同研究プロジェクト

2025

24

32

https://hdl.handle.net/11094/104902

10.18910/104902

https://doi.org/10.18910/104902