After being neglected since the establishment of the housing market in the 1990s, China has recently shown great enthusiasm for developing the housing rental market. It is essential to understand why people choose private renting as it enables us to better identify the demands of tenants and develop policies accordingly to promote private renting. However, at the micro-level, the determinants for people's renting intention have rarely been studied in the Chinese context. This paper aims to examine what specific underlying beliefs, as well as background factors, influence people's private renting intention in China's metropolises. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), we designed questionnaires and collected personal data from 476 private renters living in Shenzhen. We found people had generally favorable attitudes, supportive subjective norms, and high perceived behavioral control of private renting in Shenzhen. Results from a path analysis suggest that people's renting intention was most influenced by their attitudes toward renting, followed by subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. In addition, marital status and some underlying behavioral, normative, and control beliefs were also found to have significant influences on renting intention. Based on our findings, some recommendations were proposed to promote private renting, such as advertising the advantages of renting to the public, enhancing the sense of belonging of renters, and expanding the rental housing supply.

In recent years, Chinese housing policies have been shifting from encouraging homeownership toward developing the private rented sector, especially in the superstar cities. Nevertheless, what are the target groups and characteristics of private rental housing in Chinese superstar cities, and whether the private rental housing is capable of meeting private tenants' housing needs remain unclear. This paper attempts to bridge this gap from the tenant perspective by examining the determinants of private tenants' residential satisfaction. We argue that residential satisfaction should be examined within different submarkets. By adopting the Structure of Housing Provision thesis, we identified three main sub-sectors in China's superstar cities, i.e. urban village housing, commercial rented housing, and Long-term Rented Apartment (LTRA). Based on a questionnaire survey in Shenzhen, we examined the characteristics of the three subsectors and tenants living in each sub-sector. Furthermore, we evaluated whether the residential satisfaction levels varied significantly in different sub-sectors and the determinants of residential satisfaction in each sub-sector. The results of an ANOVA showed that tenants living in commercial rented housing and LTRAs were more satisfied than those living in urban village housing. The regression results showed that the determinants of residential satisfaction vary considerably among different sub-sectors. The results of this paper can be useful not only for the landlords to improve tenants' residential satisfaction but also for policy-makers engaged in private rental market development and urban renewal.

Research courses are part of many higher education curricula. However, students’ attitudes towards statistics and research courses tend to be negative. One way to measure students’ attitude is with the Revised-Attitudes Towards Research scale (R-ATR). The current study examined: (1) the internal reliability of the R-ATR, (2) the attitude of Dutch second-year architecture students towards research courses, and (3) whether attitude is related to age and gender. It was found that the R-ATR has good internal reliability and that Dutch second-year architecture students’ attitude towards research courses is reasonably favorable. Students generally acknowledge the usefulness of research courses and do not feel anxious, but find them stressful and difficult to some extent and do not enjoy them. Further analyses showed three types of students: relaxed students, virtuous students and worried students, who each require a different approach to improving their attitude towards research courses. No relationship emerged between attitude and age or gender, but female students considered research courses somewhat more useful. Providing a research-friendly, enjoyable, and supportive environment might improve students’ attitude towards research courses.

Open data policies are increasingly being adopted by governments. However, civil servants find it challenging to comply with open data policies. Gaming can help civil servants to practise opening data and can change their behaviour to support the opening of more data. In this article, the effect of playing a game is evaluated in an experiment in which several factors that influence the opening of data are compared before and after the game. The benefits appeared in unexpected ways and areas. Data management, privacy and security knowledge was transferred using the game, the perception of benefits showed significant changes, and behavioural intention was positively affected. Points for practitioners: Civil servants’ behaviour influences how public policies are enacted. The release of open data by governments is related by many as crucial for increasing public transparency and civic participation, and generating new economic opportunities. Games can influence the attitude of civil servants and, consequently, change governments’ decisions. Transferring knowledge and providing insights from new experiences can influence civil servants’ attitudes to open data. Moreover, governments can use games to influence civil servants’ attitudes.

The extraction of natural gas in the north of The Netherlands has led to soil subsidence and the occurrence of earthquakes. Residents worry about the safety of their families and the saleability of their dwelling and might want to move. The goal is to examine whether the earthquakes are related to the intention to move. A survey among residents in the area was carried out in 2015. The results show that the intention to move is influenced by age, education, household size, length of residence and attachment to the region. In addition, there is an effect of experience of earthquakes, which is mediated by psychological distress (anxiety, insecurity and concern). We conclude that the way in which residents handle the earthquake experience determines their intention to move, not the experience in itself. This provides opportunities to prevent out-migration by supporting residents and by providing them psychological care and security regarding the value and saleability of their dwellings.