Shintaro Kono, PhD
Contact
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation - Academic Programs
- skono@ualberta.ca
Overview
About
I am a Japanese who enjoys playing badminton and watching sitcoms!
Degrees:
Ph.D., Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation, University of Alberta, Canada, 2017
M.S., Department of Recreation, Sport, and Tourism, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A, 2012
B.A., Department of Sports and Leisure Management, Tokai University, Japan, 2011
Research
Dr. Kono's research revolves around the relationship between leisure engagement and subjective well-being. Specifically, he is interested in answering: How does leisure engagement increase participants' subjective well-being and why? He also examines this issue from a cross-cultural and non-Western perspective, by bringing in non-Western/English concepts such as ikigai (life worth living in Japanese). In addition, Dr. Kono has studied predictors of quality leisure engagement such as leisure constraints and constraint negotiation. He also utilizes a wide range of both qualitative (e.g., grounded theory, photo-elicitation) and quantitative (e.g., experiments, structural equation modeling) methods to address the said topics.
Teaching
RLS 100, Life Leisure and the Pursuit of Happiness
KIN 109, Statistics, Measurement, and Evaluation
Announcements
Currently, Dr. Kono is interested in mobilizing the knowledge on leisure and well-being to implement online leisure education in accessible media (e.g., YouTube videos) to improve subjective well-being on a large scale.
Courses
RLS 223 - Leisure and Human Behavior
A sociopsychological examination of leisure experiences and leisure behaviors. Focus is on the individual in dynamic interactions with other individuals, groups or cultures within a leisure context. Note: Credit will be granted for only one of RLS 123 or 223.