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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Citizen Science
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1507210
Opinion Changes among Participants in Citizen Participation Workshops: A Case Study on the Final Disposal of Removed Soil Outside Fukushima Prefecture
Provisionally accepted
Yukihide Shibata 1*
Qinglin Cui 1
Yume Souma 1 Mie Tsujimoto 1 Honami Ue 1 Nana Kihara 1 Maiko Takamoto 1 Tetsuo Yasutaka 2
Susumu Ohnuma 1- 1 Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
- 2 Institute for Geo-Resources and Environment, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
Existing studies on risk perception have identified key factors influencing policymaking and its support; however, their effects in practical situations remain unclear. While research on science and technology communication has explored various case studies, the measurement of changes in participants' opinions regarding risk perception and its related factors has been rare. This study seeks to integrate these two research areas by examining participants' opinion changes in participants during a practical setting-workshops on the final disposal of removed soil outside Fukushima Prefecture. Specifically, the study aims to investigates changes in psychological variables, such as policy acceptance and risk perception. To achieve this, pre-and post-workshop questionnaire surveys were issued toconducted with 47 participants to assess identify the factors expected to correlate with acceptance and risk perception. The results revealed significant differences in participants' interest, sense of involvement, knowledge, risk perception, and certain aspects of acceptance aspects before and after the workshops. Furthermore, significant correlations were found between acceptance, risk perception, interest, and trust. Notably, participants' interests and perceptions of their involvement were significantly correlated only after the workshops. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature by presenting a concrete yet nuanced case in environmental risk psychology, thus helping to integrate studies on citizen participation with science and technology communication.
Keywords: Citizen participation, removed soil, Risk Perception, Science and Technology Communication, acceptance
Received: 07 Oct 2024; Accepted: 17 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shibata, Cui, Souma, Tsujimoto, Ue, Kihara, Takamoto, Yasutaka and Ohnuma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yukihide Shibata, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
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