Making Games, Making Communicators: Engaging Social Sciences and Humanities（SSH） Students through Serious Game Design in Japanese Higher Education

Public engagement with science and technology（ S&T） suffers from participation gaps, with those from social sciences and humanities （SSH）backgrounds historically underrepresented as both audiences and participants in science communication. In Japan, rigid educational tracking into STEM or SSH fields by late high school contributes to mutual indifference between these domains, leaving SSH students disengaged from S&T topics. This article explores an intervention addressing this gap: a practice-based course in which Japanese undergraduate SSH students design serious analog games on socio-technical issues. I draw on a multi-year educational practice at a women’s university in Japan （2020–2023） involving approximately 22 SSH undergraduates each year in a semester-long serious game design course. Data sources included classroom observations, students’ design artifacts, reflection essays, and focus group interviews with former participants （conducted two years postcourse）. Qualitative findings suggest that researching issues, iterating prototypes, and refining rules fostered stakeholder perspective-taking, raised interest in S&T, and increased confidence in discussing science–society dilemmas. Students reported growing ownership and facilitation skills that supported dialogue on an equal footing, challenging expert–layperson hierarchies. Several teams voluntarily brought games to science events and facilitated visitor conversations, reinforcing an identity shift from passive learners to public-facing dialogue facilitators.