The COVID-19 pandemic forced universities worldwide to make the switch to online instruction, raising concerns about the quality of online courses and their impact on student satisfaction and engagement. This study aimed to explore Korean university students’ satisfaction levels with online English-mediated instruction (EMI) courses during the pandemic and identify factors that influence class satisfaction. The purpose of this study was to provide insights into how EMI instructors could improve their online teaching practices during and after a pandemic. The hypothesis was that instructional strategies (IS), academic conscientiousness (AC), and academic integration (AI) could mediate the link between engagement and satisfaction. The study used a survey design to collect data from 219 Korean university students who took online EMI courses during the spring 2020 semester. The survey collected demographic information as well as students’ perceptions of valuable IS, AC, AI, and satisfaction. Data analysis included independent samples t-test, correlation analysis, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), and multiple regression analysis. The results showed IS use and satisfaction differed among disciplines. Specifically, there were significant differences in satisfaction levels between Arts, STEM, Business, Social Sciences, and Literature and Languages majors. Additionally, there were significant relationships between demographics, AC, AI, IS use, and satisfaction. SEM was used to provide a general view of factors mediating the link between engagement and satisfaction. The results revealed that AC, AI, and IS use mediated the link between engagement and satisfaction. Multiple regression analysis showed that students were more satisfied with instructors who demonstrated care and warmth using social networking sites to communicate. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into student satisfaction with online EMI courses during the COVID-19 pandemic and for the future of online EMI teaching-learning. The findings suggest that online EMI instructors should consider using social networking sites to communicate with students in order to increase satisfaction levels. Additionally, instructors should be aware that different disciplines may require different instructional strategies to maximize student engagement and satisfaction.

A better understanding of farmers’ investment strategies associated with climate and weather is crucial to protecting farming and other climate-exposed sectors from extreme hydrometeorological events. Accordingly, this study employed a field experiment to investigate the investment decisions under risk and uncertainty by 213 farmers from four regions of Taiwan. Each was asked 30 questions that paired “no investment,” “investment with crop insurance,” “investment with subsidized crop insurance,” and “investment” as possible responses. By providing imperfect information and various probabilities of certain states occurring, the experimental scenarios mimicked various types of weather-forecasting services. As well as their socioeconomic characteristics, the background information we collected about the participants included their experiences of natural disasters and what actions they take to protect their crops from weather damage. The sampled farmers became more conservative in their decision-making as the weather forecasts they received became more precise, except when increases in risk were associated with high returns. The provision of insurance subsidies also had a conservatizing effect. However, considerable variation in investment preferences was observed according to the farmers’ crop types. For those seeking to create comprehensive policies aimed at helping the agricultural sector deal with the costs of damage from extreme events, this study has important implications. This approach could be extended to research on the perceptions of decision-makers in other climate-exposed sectors such as the construction industry.

This study examines the relationship between individual altruistic attitudes and the incentives of participating in a climate coalition by using a laboratory experiment. A dominant strategy solution design categorizes players into two roles in the game: critical and non-critical players. The critical players have a weakly dominant strategy of joining and are essential to an effective coalition. On the other hand, the non-critical players have a dominant strategy of not-joining. The theory suggests that strong altruism would lead non-critical players to join a coalition. The experimental evidence shows that coalitions could be enlarged from the self-interest prediction. However, the result indicates that the individual incentives for participation seem to be negatively correlated with altruistic attitudes. The stronger the altruistic tendencies the less likely individuals are to join a coalition.

This chapter examines the impacts of inequality-averse attitudes on the individual incentives of participating in international environmental agreements using a laboratory experiment. When the subjects had strong inequality-averse attitudes, then the critical players might have had the incentive to break the coalition internally. In particular, cross-boundary environmental issues are usually so complex and so widespread that they require collaboration between states. In this respect, international environmental agreements (IEAs) are constructed to regulate and manage the current situation. Egalitarian signatories could punish free-rider behaviour by turning down a profitable IEA. In other words, the effects of inequality-aversion could shape the stability and the formation of IEAs both internally and externally. The experiment was conducted at the Centre for Experimental Economics (EXEC) laboratory at the University of York (UK) and programmed with z-Tree. Fifty subjects were invited through the Online Recruitment System (ORSEE). They were students from different countries and studied various disciplines.