본 연구는 일본어를 전공하는 학생들의 일반적인 학습, 진로 특성을 알아보기 위해 4년제 대학에서 일본어를 전공하고 있는 학생들을 대상으로 일본어 전공자의 일반적인 특성을 조사하였다. 학습과 관련된 특성으로는 대학 입학 전 선행학습 유무, 자격증 유무와 급수, 일본 방문 경험 유무, 수업 외 개별 학습 시간, 입학 전 일본어에 대한 관심도, 입학 후 일본어에 대한 관심도 등을 조사하였다. 진로 관련 특성으로는 진로 결정 여부, 진로 결정 유형, 전공 관련 직종 희망 여부를 조사하였다. 학습 관련 특성에서는 선행학습 경험이 있거나, 일본 방문 경험이 있는 학생들이 전공에 대한 관심도가 더 높았다. 그러나 일본 방문 경험이 있는 학생이 매우 소수라서 더 긍정적인 결과를기대하기는 어려웠다. 자격증을 소지하는 학생이 전체의 44.7%였지만 JLPT를 소지하는 학생의 경우 비교적 높은 급수를 취득하였고, 3, 4학년 학생들이 저학년에 비해 자격증을 취득한 비율이 비교적 높은 것을 확인하였다. 전공 관련 직종 희망 여부에서는 선행학습 경험이 있는 학생, 일본 방문 경험이 있는 학생, 자격증 있는 학생, 저학년 학생, 관심도 높은 학생들이 그렇지 않은 학생들 보다 전공과 관련된 직종을 더 많이 희망하는 것을 알 수 있었다.
The aim of this study was to investigate the general traits of students who are majoring in Japanese in a four-year college or university in Korea in order to identify their general learning and career traits. Specifically, in terms of their learning traits, whether they had prior learning experience of Japanese before getting into the university, whether they had any Japanese language certificate and their language proficiency level or rating, whether they had visited Japan, the amount of time they spent on individual learning outside of class, and their degree of interest in Japanese before and after entering college were examined. As for the career traits of Japanese major college students, whether they have already decided on their career, types of their career choices, and whether they pursue careers that are related to their major were examined. As for the traits related to learning their target language, most of the first and second year students of Japanese showed higher interest in their majors and the degree of interest in their majors was found to be relatively lower in junior and senior students. Therefore, for the first and second year students who have high interest in their subject or course, it is necessary to explore the ways to motivate them to keep up their interest in their major by presenting new interesting ideas and providing stimulations or motivations for learning. In addition, efforts need to be made to find the methods to motivate them by stimulating the students’ interest in their major subjects for the those who show low interest. Although students who had prior learning experience of their subject or had visited Japan showed relatively higher interest in their major, it was difficult to identify the general tendency or get a definite or concrete result since only a few of the subjects had pre-study experience or had visited Japan. As for whether they hope to find a job in a field related to their major after graduation, students who had prior learning of Japanese, those who had visited Japan, those who had language proficiency certification, the first or second year students, and students who had high interest in their major showed relatively higher desires to pursue their career in the fields related to their major. This study found the general conditions and tendencies of the college students who major in Japanese, but the samples of this research were too limited to generalize the results to all the Japanese majoring students in Korea and the survey items or categories were so restricted that they could only show the general traits. Therefore, further studies are required in order to develop more specific questionnaires and conduct in-depth research and analysis.