Development Process of Kaigokan Among Japanese Students Studying Caregiving in A Four-Year College Degree Course: A Longitudinal Study

Objective: This study conducted a longitudinal survey of students studying caregiving through a certified care worker program at a four-year college to clarify the development process of Participants were 23 students enrolled in the care worker program at Nihon Fukushi University. A questionnaire was administered five times to observe changes in kaigokan during a four-year period. Text mining was used to obtain factors concerning caregiving from free response data. Participants’ outlook on caregiving was compared and examined each academic year, based on the categories extracted from the co-occurrence network. Results: This is extremely important for the quality of the students’ education and caregiving.