Feedback of the knowledge obtained through the analysis of learning needs for risk literacy education

In a risk society, the necessity of risk literacy education has been pointed out. Learning programs that reflect appropriately the leaners’ needs must be introduced into such education. Therefore, the authors conducted lectures on risk literacy at the Open University of Japan, whose students are adult and full-fledged member of society. The purposes of this research were as follows: (1) to evaluate the risk literacy programs by corresponding between students’ learning needs and a lecturer’s teaching contents in the class; (2) to ascertain the learning needs of the students concerning risk literacy; and (3) to clarify the points of promoting the effectiveness of the lecture programs. The research data were analyzed by text mining method using KeyGraph. The main results of the study are as follows. (1) Students learned to examine many aspects of their daily lives from the point of view of risk studies, and the effectiveness of risk literacy education was revealed. (2) Within risk literacy, the students had high learning needs for risk communication in future education programs. The term “risk communication” was often used in relation to the students’ works. (3) Based on the two previous findings, we could improve the programs by the following three points: (i) by teaching the aspects of risk, risk perception, and coping with risk in relation to [safety] and [security] of [life]; (ii) by showing the multifaceted framework, including the use of matters of risks, in addition to the points of attention on risks; and (iii) by including specific contents, such as concrete examples in the programs, namely, categorizing the occupations or hazards, and showing the characteristics of risk communication of each category.