Published papers

In this study, we investigated the effects of debriefing on 196 Japanese University students as part of an international collaboration between Austria and Japan. Based on the results of our previous studies [19–21], we showed that debriefing can bolster learning from the perspective of attitude changes and performance in games. However, there were weaknesses to previous studies in the sense that there were no facilitators to conduct the debriefings. In the experiments, all types of debriefing were carried out by students, i.e. self-guided. However, debriefing is usually conducted by a facilitator and carried out in a group. To address this weakness, we introduced facilitator-guided debriefing for the experimental conditions. Therefore, there were two experimental conditions: facilitator-guided debriefing and self-guided debriefing. After debriefing, groups of four participants played the Highway Planning game, which deals with co-operation and conflict. According to the results, the participants under facilitator-guided debriefing conditions showed more cooperative attitudes than did those under self-guided debriefing conditions, while participants in the self-guided debriefing group showed more competitive attitudes.

To promote and raise the awareness of accurate knowledge on pesticide residues, the symposium program on risk communication on pesticide residues was held by the broadcasted online style. The risk communication program was statistically evaluated using a pre- and post-program online questionnaire survey. We had the questionnaire answers of the 105 valid participants. The analysis of post-program questionnaires shows that the risk communication program was effective in terms of levels of understanding and interest. Pre-program risk perception or awareness of safety assessments was significantly and positively correlated with awareness for establishing standard values of pesticide residues by the analysis of pre-program questionnaires. Risk perception after the program was significantly higher than before the program, suggesting that risk perception increased due to the program by analysis the same question between pre- and post-program questionnaires. Multiple regression analysis suggests that the participants with higher pre-program awareness of safety assessments or pre-program awareness for establishing standard values appeared to have higher levels of understanding and post-program risk perception.

In this study, a public seminar on risk communication methods was conducted to raise awareness and disseminate accurate knowledge about residual pesticides to consumers. Additionally, surveys on consumer awareness were conducted on the attendees before and after the seminar to evaluate its effectiveness. Responses were obtained from 84 participants. The paired t-test was used to analyze the changes in awareness before and after the seminar. The results showed significant improvements in“trust in the government”and“understanding of residual pesticides.”Furthermore, step-wise multiple regression analysis was performed to explore the factors influencing satisfaction with the risk communication seminar, and the item“understanding of the safety of residual pesticides in food”was extracted. Understanding food safety is a crucial concern in daily life for consumers. To enable consumers to have an accurate understanding of food risks and make appropriate judgments, it is essential to continue implementing risk communication and conveying information about food safety and security in the future.

© The Author(s) 2019. Background. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of the “persuasion game” in changing environmental attitudes and behaviors in different cultural contexts. Personal communication has been identified as a key facilitator of environmental behaviors, but environmental communication in our daily lives is infrequent. Intervention. This study tested the effects of the persuasion game in Germany, Hong Kong, and Japan. The game divides participants into two groups: persuaders and persuadees. The persuaders were given 10 minutes to persuade as many persuadees as they could to adopt energy-saving behaviors. Further, after 10 minutes, these participants were asked to switch their roles. Method. The study employed a quasi-experimental pretest/posttest design to examine changes in attitudes and behavioral intentions of the participants toward energy-saving before and after their participation in the persuasion game. Participants were university students in Germany (N = 116), Hong Kong (N = 65), and Japan (N = 92). Results. In all three countries, playing the game was associated with increased intention to adopt energy-saving behaviors, perceived seriousness of environmental problems, descriptive norm, and subjective norm. The increase in subjective norm was especially high in Japan, where the increase in intention to adopt energy-saving behavior was particularly pronounced among those who had less environmental communication. Discussion. The results indicate that this game can not only facilitate communication on environmental issues in different cultural contexts but also change how people perceive others’ interest in environmental issues. Conclusion. This study showed that persuasion game can be played in countries other than Japan as well. Moreover, it provides an opportunity to communicate with others on environmental issues, which may contribute to promoting future environmental behaviors.

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018. The present study examined the effects of debriefing on 171 Japanese university students as part of an international collaboration between Austria and Japan. There were eight experimental conditions, as follows: control group without treatment, fun game with no debriefing, Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) game with no debriefing, PD game with self-completed debriefing, PD game with guided written debriefing, PD game with guided written debriefing and a conceptual frame, no game but reading of a text, and no game but study of a picture. Following completion of these activities, groups of four participants then played the Highway Planning Game [1], which deals with cooperation and conflict. Although performance during the Highway Planning Game did not significantly differ among the groups (probably because of the small number of groups), there were interesting differences in terms of performance and attitudes that will stimulate further research.