AN ASYMMETRIC CLUSTER-ANALYSIS STUDY ON U NIVERSITY ENROLLMENT FLOW AMONG JAPANESE PREFECTURES

Prefecture to prefecture university enrollment now from high school wa s analyzed to show the relationship on the university entrance migrati on among Japanese prefectures. The School Fundamental Survey data in e very four years before and after the introduction of the Joint First S tage Achievement Test, were analyzed. An asymmetric duster analysis pr ocedure was employed that has two advantageous aspects which tradition al ones did not have. (1) The derived tree can represent the asymmetri c flow relationship among prefectures. (2) The now, where the high sch ool and the university were in the same prefecture, can construct a cl uster by self similarity. The results showed the introduction of the t est scarcely affected the university enrollment flow relationship amon g prefectures. But, they showed some differences between before and af ter the introduction (a) Before the introduction, there were four infl uential regions ( each of them had Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, or Aichi as it s center) that strongly attracted high school graduates from other pre fectures ( the influential regions whose centers were Osaka or Aichi r espectively, were very small.). After the introduction, there were two influential regions ( whose center was Tokyo or Kyoto). The region wh ose center is Tokyo dominates the other(s) anyway. (b) The number of p refectures, which have strong orientation of the university enrollment within the same prefecture, increased after the introduction.