SHINTARO KONO'S LEISURE RESEARCH LAB
Exploring one of the most understudied aspects of our life
My research aims to understand how people experience leisure, and more importantly why they live a leisure life that they have. This involves studying what constrains or motivates people's leisure experience, and what outcomes people derive from their leisure. I am also interested in how different and similar people's leisure experience is across different cultures.
BIO
Who I Am
I’m an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta, Canada. I am passionate about studying and teaching leisure. Research suggests that leisure is the life domain that can make our lives worth living. Yet, many of us do not know how to make most out of it. And that's the knowledge that I would like to produce and teach.
I am originally from Japan. My leisure interests involve both active (e.g., badminton, golf) and cultural (e.g., trying new food, gaming) activities.
MY RESEARCH
ONLINE LEISURE EDUCATION INTERVENTIONS (ONLEI)
Leisure education has been traditionally an intervention tool for people with disabilities. However, the conventional in-person delivery costs many resources. Can we do it online -- through videos, apps, website, messengers, etc.? This project is inspired by online positive psychological interventions. One of the main outcomes I examine is subjective well-being. This is a new research -- join me!
LEISURE AND IKIGAI, OR LIFE WORTH LIVING
This was my doctoral research conducted at the University of Alberta. I developed a theory of the relationships between leisure and ikigai (i.e., life worth living in Japanese), using the mixed methods research design. The first qualitative study guided by grounded theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2015) created a substantive theory on the topic based on photo elicitation data from Japanese university students. The second quantitative study tested this theory, using partial least squares structural equation modeling (Hair et al., 2017), with online survey data collected from a larger sample of Japanese university students.
LEISURE-TIME PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND CONSTRAINTS/CONSTRAINT NEGOTIATION
This cross-cultural research project was led by my collaborator Dr. Eiji Ito (Wakayama University, Japan). We conducted free-descriptive online surveys with Japanese and Euro-Canadian adults to learn about what constrained their LTPA participation and how they negotiated such constraints. Based on this information we developed new typologies of constraints and negotiation as well as new survey items. We used these items in the follow-up cross-cultural survey to examine their validity. My contributions have been methodological.
LEISURE AFTER NATURAL DISASTERS
This was my Master's research conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After seeing the devastation caused by the 3.11 tsunami and earthquake in Japan, I worked to understand how leisure experiences after the disasters helped survivors recover psychologically. This qualitative study was based on semi-structured interviews with survivors and disaster volunteers as well as my field observations.
Recent Blog Posts
Shintaro's CV
Associate Professor (tenured)
July 2024 - Present
In the area of leisure studies, in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation, University of Alberta.
Assistant Professor (tenure-track)
July 2019 - June, 2024
In the area of leisure studies, in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation, University of Alberta.
Assistant Professor (tenure-track)
January 2017 - June 2019
With focus on general recreation/ therapeutic recreation in the Department of Public Health and Recreation Professions, College of Education and Human Services, Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Ph.D. Candidate/Student
May 2013 - December 2017
With focus on leisure behavior in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation at the University of Alberta (Canada). My supervisor was Dr. Gordon J. Walker.
M.S. Student
September 2011 - December 2012
With focus on leisure behavior in the Department of Recreation, Sports, and Tourism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My supervisor then was Dr. Kimberly J. Shinew.
Selected Publications (hyperlinked)
News
Appearing on CTV Morning Live to discuss ikigai and leisure
Consulting a research project for Action for Healthy Communities (non-profit)
Received the 2023 Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Engage Grant!
Received the 2022 New Researcher Award from The Academy of Leisure Sciences (TALS)
Former grad student, Seung Jin Cho, received a Future Scholar Award by The Academy of Leisure Sciences (TALS)
Received the 2021 Emerging Leisure Scholar Award from the Canadian Association of Leisure Studies (CALS)!
Meet The Team
Minchen Huang
Minchen is a Ph.D. student at U of Alberta. He's interested in leisure, domestic migration, and constraints.
Dr. Jingjing Gui
Dr. Gui is a teaching assistant professor at U of Alberta. She's specialized in leisure and culture.
Dr. Eiji Ito
Dr. Ito is an associate professor in the School of Health and Sport Sciences, Chukyo University, Japan.
Wenzhe Zheng
Wenzhe is a Master student at University of Alberta. He's interested in leisure constraints, facilitators, and work-leisure conflict.
Dr. Shinichi Nagata
Dr. Nagata is an assistant professor in Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences at the University of Tsukuba, Japan.
Dr. Jon Dattilo
Dr. Dattilo is a professor in the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management at The Pennsylvania State University
Meet The Team
Seung Jin Cho
Seung Jin is a Ph.D. student at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.