The attitudes of 251 second language teachers toward kanji and their choices of instructional strategies for teaching kanji were explored in this study. Principal component analysis resulted in the identification of 6 statistically reliable domains representing underlying attitudes toward teaching kanji (cultural tradition, difficulty of kanji, affective orientation, aptitudes, usefulness of kanji, and expectation for the future of kanji) and 3 instructional strategies (context, memory, and rote learning). Descriptive statistics revealed that the most positive attitude was toward the "usefulness of kanji" and that the most common instructional strategy was "rote learning." Canonical correlation revealed a statistically significant correlation between 3 attitude variables-affective orientation, usefulness of kanji, and cultural tradition-and 2 instructional strategies-memory and context strategies. The results showed that: (a) the underlying attitudes toward teaching kanji and teaching strategies were multidimensional and complex, and (b) teachers who appreciated the cultural tradition in kanji and its practical utility tended to have a more positive affect and were more likely to utilize memory and contextual strategies for teaching kanji, although rote learning strategies were the most frequent among all teachers.

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This study aims at identifying interpretable factors underlying Japanese language learners' attitudes toward kanji and their self‐reported kanji learning strategies. It also examines the relationship between the two sets of belief factors. A questionnaire survey was conducted among Japanese language students at nine universities in the United States; 311 responses were subjected to exploratory factor analyses that identified six attitudinal factors and six strategy belief factors. Descriptive statistics indicated that students considered rote memorization most effective and metacognitive strategies least effective. Correlational analyses revealed that appreciation of the cultural value of kanji and positive emotions toward kanji were associated with stronger belief in varied strategies. Perception of difficulty and belief in special abilities required for kanji learning, in contrast, were associated with reliance on rote memorization.

This study examines the relationship between how learners of Japanese as a second language perceive the learning of kanji (i.e., the logographic characters shared with Chinese) and their ability to learn novel kanji words using morphological and contextual information. Eighty college students learning Japanese as a foreign language completed a 60-item kanji questionnaire, a 75-item kanji test, and a 30-item reading comprehension test. Results indicated modest but statistically significant correlations between the belief variables and the kanji ability measures, with reading proficiency factored out. Regression analyses revealed that although reading proficiency accounted for a large portion of variance of the participants' performance on the kanji test, belief in the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies accounted for 14-16% of the variance of success in morphological analysis. The results suggest that (a) students' task-specific beliefs have a significant impact on their achievement on a given task and that (b) metacognitive awareness significantly affects how a learner handles a challenging learning task.

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