Speaker
Abstract
University courses often address global issues, but students’ sense of what is most severe can shift depending on whether they are thinking about Japan or the world. This poster draws on survey data from one private university’s cohorts (2022–2026; 100+ respondents) to show how university students rank the severity of social issues across two scales: Japan and global. Participants rated the same 15 issues twice, using a severity scale from extremely severe to not severe at all. They also wrote a short response explaining which social issue they believe is the most severe in Japan and why. The poster highlights three patterns in the dataset. First, it identifies which issues consistently cluster at the top and bottom of severity ratings within each cohort. Second, it shows where perceptions diverge most sharply between Japan and global ratings, including issues that tend to be framed as urgent domestically versus urgent globally. Third, it uses brief thematic coding of the written responses to show how students justify “severity,” including references to lived experience, visibility in everyday life, media exposure, and perceived urgency. The session includes a short interactive component where attendees can make their own ratings before seeing the student participants’ ratings. We will then compare the audience results with the student cohorts’ results during the session.
Short summary
This study analyzes survey data from 100+ university students across one private university’s cohorts (2022–2026) to examine how students judge the severity of social issues in Japan and on a global scale. Participants rated the same 15 issues twice, from extremely severe to not severe at all, and wrote a short response explaining which issue they believe is most severe in Japan.
Keywords
student perceptions; quantitative analysis; SDGs; social issues
| Scheduling preference | Anytime on Saturday or Sunday |
|---|---|
| Title | University students’ rankings of social issue severity |