College Students’ Perceptions of and Place Attachment to Rural Areas: Case Study of Japan and China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Thank you for the opportunity to review a revised version of the manuscript titled “The Young Generation’s Perception of and Place Attachment to Rural Areas: Case Study of Japan and China”.

I reviewed this work to determine suitability for publication based on a combination of factors, including whether the topic is well suited to the aims and scope of the journal, methodological considerations, and whether the findings make a sufficient contribution to the existing literature. Unfortunately, I still believe the manuscript does not meet these requirements.

However, this revised version seems much more strengthened. It is recommended to be published in a regional/local journal.

 

Thank you.

Author Response

REVIEWER #1

Thank you for the opportunity to review a revised version of the manuscript titled “College Student’s Perception of and Place Attachment to Rural Areas: Case Study of Japan and China”.

I reviewed this work to determine suitability for publication based on a combination of factors, including whether the topic is well suited to the aims and scope of the journal, methodological considerations, and whether the findings make a sufficient contribution to the existing literature. Unfortunately, I still believe the manuscript does not meet these requirements.

However, this revised version seems much more strengthened. It is recommended to be published in a regional/local journal.

Reply:

I am sincerely grateful for the time and effort you have invested in reviewing my manuscript titled "College Student’s Perception of and Place Attachment to Rural Areas: Case Study of Japan and China." I also appreciate your constructive comments and suggestions.

I understand your concerns regarding the suitability of the manuscript for publication in the journal. In light of your feedback, I am committed to revising the manuscript to address the issues you have pointed out, with the aim of enhancing its methodological rigor and contribution to the existing literature.

Although you have recommended considering a regional or local journal for publication, I kindly ask for the opportunity to resubmit my revised manuscript for your consideration. I hope that the upcoming revisions will elevate the quality of the manuscript, making it a more suitable candidate for publication in this journal.

Once again, thank you for your valuable input and guidance. Your insights will undoubtedly help me improve the manuscript, and I hope that my efforts will meet your expectations.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Thank you for the honor of reviewing the article entitled “The Young Generation's Perception of and Place Attachment to Rural Areas: Case Study of Japan and China”. I consider this an interesting article. modern In particular, it presents the interest of students in two countries, Japan and China, in their perception of rural studies in the country.

- Presenting issues comparing 2 countries, how important is it? and other countries close to the context Should it be included in the explanation?

- Is collecting data through google form a problem or not? How much accurate information does it get?

- Data analysis is interesting in the table, however, please check the diagram presentation for lack of clarity in detail when it comes to publishing in journals. Can it be improved to be professional?

- Is the research limited? How? It should be discussed. or present limitations of this study.

Thank you so much, good luck.

Author Response

REVIEWER #2

Thank you for the honor of reviewing the article entitled “College student’s Perception of and Place Attachment to Rural Areas: Case Study of Japan and China”. I consider this an interesting article. modern In particular, it presents the interest of students in two countries, Japan and China, in their perception of rural studies in the country.

1. - Presenting issues comparing 2 countries, how important is it? and other countries close to the context Should it be included in the explanation?

• Thank you for your valuable feedback. In response to your suggestion, we have revised our background section to provide a justification for comparing the two countries, as well as mentioning other countries with similar contexts that can benefit from the insights gained through this comparison(Lines 32-47). We have appended a second paragraph to the introduction section. We believe that comparing the perceptions and attachments of young people in China and Japan can reveal important similarities and differences in their rural experiences, which can inform the development of effective strategies to address rural depopulation and decline in these countries and others facing similar challenges.

2. - Is collecting data through google form a problem or not? How much accurate information does it get?

• Thank you for your valuable feedback regarding the accuracy of data collected through Google Form and Tencent questionnaire. We understand your concern and have revised our "Materials and Methods" section to address this issue. We have clarified that both platforms are widely used and reliable for data collection in research studies and have taken steps to ensure the validity and reliability of our data by employing snowball sampling and carefully designing our questionnaire.
• We have also added sentences to emphasize the measures taken to ensure data accuracy and representativeness(Lines 134-140). We believe that these revisions adequately address your concerns and hope that our study now meets the necessary standards for accuracy and validity.

3. - Data analysis is interesting in the table, however, please check the diagram presentation for lack of clarity in detail when it comes to publishing in journals. Can it be improved to be professional?

• Thank you for your valuable feedback on the data analysis and diagram presentation in our study. We have made every effort to adjust the image clarity to ensure that it meets the requirements for journal publication. However, due to the nature of the data analysis and the visual representation generated from it, we might not be able to improve the image further. We understand the importance of presenting clear and professional diagrams, and we assure you that we have done our best to optimize the visual presentation of the data while maintaining the integrity and accuracy of the results.We really appreciate your understanding and will take your comments into consideration for future research.

4. - Is the research limited? How? It should be discussed or present limitations of this study.

• I greatly appreciate the time and effort you have invested in reviewing my manuscript titled "The Young Generation's Perception of and Place Attachment to Rural Areas: Case Study of Japan and China." I am sincerely thankful for your constructive comments and suggestions.I understand your concerns regarding the limitations of the study and the need for further discussion on this aspect. In response to your valuable feedback, I have revised the discussion section of the manuscript to address the limitations more explicitly.(Lines 427-434) I have highlighted the lack of research on students without rural visitation experiences, the study's focus on two representative countries in East Asia, and the potential issues with the sample size. I hope that these revisions will help to address your concerns and improve the overall quality of the manuscript. While I acknowledge your recommendation to consider a regional or local journal for publication, I hope that my revisions will elevate the quality of the manuscript, making it a more suitable candidate for publication in this journal. I kindly request the opportunity to resubmit my revised manuscript for your consideration. Once again, thank you for your valuable input and guidance, which will undoubtedly help me improve the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Thank you for the opportunity to review this new manuscript on ‘young generation’s perceptions of and place attachment to rural areas: case study of Japan and China’ . The authors have studied 259 students (126 Japanese and 133 Chinese) on factors influencing their rural attachment and willingness to live in rural areas. The topic is timely as population in many rural areas globally is diminishing, and at the same time the humanity faces great challenges of climate chance, biodiversity loss, overconsumption of natural resources and unbalanced harmony with the nature.

Unfortunately I found the argumentation and logic in the article still unclear, and I encourage the authors to do major revisions to their text, so that it’s importance and new contributions would be better strengthened. I would ask the authors to consider a number of amendments before the paper could be accepted.

    1. It is not clear for the reader why university students should visit rural areas? And even more unclear why university students should move to live in rural areas? This should be crystalized as these questions are fundamental for the argumentation of the article.

2.    What makes the logic even more difficult to follow is, why the authors compare visits and motivations of living in rural areas? For me as a reader this would make two separate analysis chapters:
a) How to make more college students to visit the rural areas, and what factors will support this (including the gender analysis and differences)?
b) How to make more college students to be willing to live on rural areas?

3. Why selecting college students? Do they have some specific, important role in relation to the rural areas? Is there a need to get especially college students to move to rural areas? Why?

4.    Main title: consider revising “college student’s perception..”

5.    p1, 36-41: is there research how these different things mentioned “lead to young people’s lack of attachment” – the argumentation do not sound right. Are these the only reasons?

6.    What the authors mean with “developing rural communities”? How do they define “development”? What do authors mean with “revitalizing these areas”? What kind of “revitalizing” they wish to happen? Is that sustainable development/ in country policies/ or some other bodies defined as an important goal? And why is that important? (p. 2, 84-88) Also at the end p. 14, 410: “challenges and opportunities for rural development globally” – I believe if authors would systematic and from different – also critical - development perspectives first discuss this concept, that would help to build the entire article more systematically.

7.    p.3., 95: “aging population”: what is the authors argument about aging population? It's not clear how it is related to the study as the populations are aging everywhere (rural, urban).

8.    Sample & reliability: I encourage the authors to critically look the reliability and statistical differences and focus their analysis on these in statistical analysis section. Sample sizes are quite small for statistic analysis..

9.    p.5.: some of the formulations in the table are not clear, please revise. E.g. “I like the atmosphere and character…” vs. “I like rural areas” – these two questions overlap? Very difficult question to understand: “I do not want the rural areas to change forever” or “I think I can live with a small amount of one-day tourist spending in rural areas” – I do not understand these questions and what is meant/studied by asking it.

10.  p.6 200-202: I can not follow the logic how the authors come to these conclusions.

11. p. 6 208- p.7 216 – authors refer different results to each other – it is not systematic or coherent.

12.  I am not very convinced about the text-mining method / “cooccurrence network” as it do not tell if the words used in the answers has a positive or negative standpoint. I would encourage to do instead text analysis, thematic sampling, typologies or some other qualitative and more in-depth analysis, where the readers could also read young people's own more nyanced perspectives and ideas of the topic. As well the authors mention that in open-end questions there were gender differences: this point would support even more some other method for studying young people’s answers than the one now presented.

13. p. 13, 344-349: reporting of the results is not systematic.

14. p. 13 356-358: Do not understand the statement, and what is important and why.

15. Discussion part is not coherent, systematic and do not clearly show the new knowledge the study produced. There are also new findings reported first time in this part, that should appear earlier in other sections of the article.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

REVIEWER #3

Thank you for the opportunity to review this new manuscript on ‘young generation’s perceptions of and place attachment to rural areas: case study of Japan and China’ . The authors have studied 259 students (126 Japanese and 133 Chinese) on factors influencing their rural attachment and willingness to live in rural areas. The topic is timely as population in many rural areas globally is diminishing, and at the same time the humanity faces great challenges of climate chance, biodiversity loss, overconsumption of natural resources and unbalanced harmony with the nature.

Unfortunately I found the argumentation and logic in the article still unclear, and I encourage the authors to do major revisions to their text, so that it’s importance and new contributions would be better strengthened. I would ask the authors to consider a number of amendments before the paper could be accepted.

Reply：

Thank you for taking the time to review our paper and providing such detailed feedback. We are grateful for your evaluating our paper and making valuable suggestions for improvement. Your feedback has been instrumental in guiding our revisions, and we hope that the revised manuscript will meet your expectations. We appreciate your constructive criticism and will work to address the issues you have raised. Thank you again for your time and consideration.

1. It is not clear for the reader why university students should visit rural areas? And even more unclear why university students should move to live in rural areas? This should be crystalized as these questions are fundamental for the argumentation of the article.

• Answer： Thank you for your valuable feedback. In response to your suggestion, we have revised the background section to clarify why the study focuses on university students visiting rural areas, and their willingness to live in rural areas (lines 49-62). We have highlighted that university students are often more mobile and open to exploring new living environments, and attracting young and educated people to rural areas can help revitalize local economies and support sustainable development.Understanding the factors that influence university students' attachment to rural areas can inform the development of targeted policies and initiatives aimed at encouraging young people to visit and potentially settle in rural areas. We wish that these additions will make the article's argumentation more straightforward for the reader.

2.  What makes the logic even more difficult to follow is, why the authors compare visits and motivations of living in rural areas? For me as a reader this would make two separate analysis chapters: a) How to make more college students to visit the rural areas, and what factors will support this (including the gender analysis and differences)? b) How to make more college students to be willing to live on rural areas?

• Answer： Thank you for your insightful recommendations. In response to your feedback, we have updated our study's background and provided a clearer articulation of our research objectives（Lines 118-126）. We have now separated our analysis into two main areas of focus:
• a) Understanding the factors that influence university students' willingness to visit rural areas, including gender analysis and differences.
• b) Identifying the factors that contribute to university students' willingness to live in rural areas. We wish that these revisions make our research objectives more explicit and better aligned with the article's overall structure. We also hope that the updated background and research objectives address your concerns and improve the clarity of our study for readers. Thank you once again for your insightful comments and guidance.

3. Why selecting college students? Do they have some specific, important role in relation to the rural areas? Is there a need to get especially college students to move to rural areas? Why?

• Answer： Thank you for your valuable insights and suggestions. We appreciate your query about the rationale behind selecting college students as the target population for our study. In response to your concerns, we have revised the background section of our manuscript to clarify the importance of focusing on college students in the context of rural development（Lines 55-62）. College students, as a highly educated and mobile group, can play a significant role in revitalizing rural areas by choosing to live, work, or invest in rural Their perceptions and attitudes towards rural areas are crucial for the development of effective policies and strategies to attract and retain young talent in rural communities.
• We hope that our revised background section adequately addresses your concerns and provides a clear rationale for our choice of study population. Once again, thank you for your constructive feedback, which has undoubtedly helped us improve our manuscript.

4.    Main title: consider revising “college student’s perception..”

• Answer： Thank you very much for your valuable suggestion regarding the main title of our manuscript. We appreciate your insight and agree that changing the title to "College Student's Perception" would be more appropriate and accurate in reflecting the focus of our research. We have revised the title accordingly, and we are confident that this change will improve the overall quality and clarity of our paper.

5. p1, 36-41: is there research how these different things mentioned “lead to young people’s lack of attachment” – the argumentation do not sound right. Are these the only reasons?

• Answer： We appreciate your insightful feedback on our manuscript, specifically regarding the factors that lead to young people's lack of attachment to rural areas. We acknowledge that our initial argument may not have been comprehensive enough. In response to your suggestion, we have revised the relevant section to emphasize that the factors mentioned are not exhaustive（Lines48-62）, but they play a significant role in shaping young people's attachment to rural areas and their decision to move to the cities. Thank you for pointing out this important aspect of our paper. Your guidance has helped us improve the clarity and accuracy of our arguments. We are grateful for your expertise and the time you have taken to review our work.

6.    What the authors mean with “developing rural communities”? How do they define “development”? What do authors mean with “revitalizing these areas”? What kind of “revitalizing” they wish to happen? Is that sustainable development/ in country policies/ or some other bodies defined as an important goal? And why is that important? (p. 2, 84-88) Also at the end p. 14, 410: “challenges and opportunities for rural development globally” – I believe if authors would systematic and from different – also critical - development perspectives first discuss this concept, that would help to build the entire article more systematically.

• Answer： Thank you for your valuable feedback. We apologize for any confusion caused by the use of the terms "developing rural communities" and "revitalizing these areas." In response to your concerns, we have clarified our definitions and objectives as follows:
• By "developing rural communities," we mean fostering sustainable growth, enhancing living standards, and preserving cultural heritage in these areas. We have revised our manuscript to provide a clearer definition of "development" in the context of rural communities.
• "Revitalizing these areas" refers to the process of encouraging economic growth, social cohesion, and environmental sustainability in rural regions. This goal aligns with sustainable development, national policies, and other important objectives recognized by various stakeholders.
• Also, about “challenges and opportunities for rural development globally” we have to add revisions in the first and second paragraphs in the background, as systematically as possible, which hopefully will better help to sort out the structure and logic of the article.We understand the importance of discussing the concept of rural development systematically and from various perspectives, including critical ones. Therefore, we have revised our manuscript to include a more comprehensive discussion of the challenges and opportunities for rural development globally, considering diverse perspectives and regional contexts. We hope that these revisions address your concerns and provide a more coherent and systematic presentation of our research objectives and findings. Thank you once again for your insightful comments, which have helped us improve our manuscript.

 

7. 3., 95: “aging population”: what is the authors argument about aging population? It's not clear how it is related to the study as the populations are aging everywhere (rural, urban).

• Answer： Thank you for your valuable feedback and suggestions. We have carefully considered your comments regarding the aging population issue and its relevance to our study. We have decided to delete “aging population” from this paragraph (Lines112-113) because we found that “aging population” may not be important relevant with this study. By making these changes, we believe our study will maintain a clearer focus on the challenges of urban development and sustainability relevant to the research questions. We appreciate your insightful input and hope that our revisions address your concerns.

8. Sample & reliability: I encourage the authors to critically look the reliability and statistical differences and focus their analysis on these in statistical analysis section. Sample sizes are quite small for statistic analysis.

• Answer： We appreciate the reviewer's suggestion to critically assess the reliability and statistical differences in our analysis. In response to this feedback, we have revised the Methods section to address the concerns about sample size and reliability（Lines148-155）.
• We acknowledge that our sample sizes might seem relatively small for statistical analysis. However, we have referred to previous studies, such as those conducted by Gay and Diehl, Roscoe, Fraenkel & Wallen, and Prita, which suggest that a sample of 30 or more respondents can be considered sufficient. In our study, we have collected data from more than 120 respondents from each country, exceeding the recommended minimum. To further ensure the reliability of our findings and address the reviewer's concerns about focusing on statistical differences in the analysis section, we have conducted a series of statistical tests. These tests include Cronbach's Alpha (α) analysis, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test, and factor-loading analysis. We have provided more details about these tests in the revised manuscript to demonstrate the robustness of our analysis. We hope that these revisions address the reviewer's concerns and enhance the quality of our manuscript. Thank you for considering our work for publication.

9. 5.: some of the formulations in the table are not clear, please revise. E.g. “I like the atmosphere and character…” vs. “I like rural areas” – these two questions overlap? Very difficult question to understand: “I do not want the rural areas to change forever” or “I think I can live with a small amount of one-day tourist spending in rural areas” – I do not understand these questions and what is meant/studied by asking it.

• Answer： Thank you for your valuable feedback on the questionnaire items. Firstly, regarding the statements "I like the atmosphere and character of the rural area" and "I like rural areas," we understand your conccharacteristicsern about the potential overlap between the two questions. We would like to clarify that there is a subtle distinction between the two statements. The original Japanese statement, "地域の雰囲気や土地柄が気に入っている," has translated as "I like the atmosphere and local  of the rural area." After consulting with my English native-speaking colleague, we decided to use this translation to better convey the intended meaning. As the questionnaire was administered in Japanese and Chinese to participants in their respective countries, there was no confusion for the respondents. We apologize for any confusion caused by the English translation of the questionnaire. This question specifically focuses on the participant's appreciation of the unique atmosphere and characteristics present in rural areas. In contrast, the statement "I like rural areas" is a more general expression of preference for rural areas as a whole without specifying any particular aspect.
• Regarding the statement "I do not want the rural areas to change forever," this is an essential question in the place attachment scale, reflecting the Desire for Continuity. The original Japanese phrase is "地域にいつまでも変わってほしくないものがある." We translated it as "I do not want the rural areas to change forever," which represents the emotional attachment people have towards rural areas based on their past experiences, leading them to hope that the rural areas remain unchanged. This indicates a deeper emotional connection.
• Finally, for the statement "I think I can live with a small amount of one-day tourist spending in rural areas," after discussing it with my English-native-speaking researcher colleague, we decided to modify the translation to "I believe living in rural areas can result in reduced daily expenses." We apologize for the confusion caused by the original translation of the question and hope that the new translation better conveys the intended meaning of the question. Thank you for your understanding.

10. 6 200-202: I can not follow the logic how the authors come to these conclusions.

• Answer： Thank you for your insightful comment on these conclusions. We appreciate your input and understand that the logic behind these conclusions may not have been clear. Our conclusions were based on the comparison of the mean values for Preference, Affection, and Desire for Continuity within the Place Attachment dimension of Table 1:Rural attachment of students in China and Japan. We found that Chinese university students had higher mean values for Place Attachment Affection, while Japanese university students had higher mean values for Place Attachment Desire for Continuity. We apologize for not explaining this more clearly hereand we have added supplementary explanations in parentheses (Lines 237-240) to make the rationale behind these conclusions more evident. We are grateful for your helpful suggestion, and we believe that this clarification will enhance the quality of our paper.

11. 6 208- p.7 216 – authors refer different results to each other – it is not systematic or coherent.

• Answer： Thank you for pointing out the lack of systematic and coherent presentation in our results section. We have carefully revised the paragraph to make it more structured and organized, focusing on the differences between Chinese and Japanese students' perceptions of living in rural areas (Lines246-255) . We appreciate your valuable feedback, which has helped us improve the quality of our paper. Thank you for your continued support and guidance.

12.  I am not very convinced about the text-mining method / “cooccurrence network” as it do not tell if the words used in the answers has a positive or negative standpoint. I would encourage to do instead text analysis, thematic sampling, typologies or some other qualitative and more in-depth analysis, where the readers could also read young people's own more nyanced perspectives and ideas of the topic. As well the authors mention that in open-end questions there were gender differences: this point would support even more some other method for studying young people’s answers than the one now presented.

• Answer： Thank you for your valuable feedback and insightful suggestions. We appreciate your concern regarding the text-mining method and the "cooccurrence network" approach in our study. We understand that this method may not fully capture the positive or negative standpoint of the words used in the responses. However, we would like to emphasize that the text-mining method and cooccurrence network analysis were employed in our study as complementary tools to provide an overview of the frequency and patterns of key terms emerging from the data. These methods can help in identifying recurring themes and connections, offering a foundation for further qualitative analysis.
• We highly respect your understanding of the methods and your suggestions for using alternative analysis methods(such as text analysis, thematic sampling, or typologies). We will carefully consider using these methods in our subsequent research. We are grateful for your willingness to go beyond the text and use your research experience to help us broaden our research horizons. Your expertise and experience have greatly contributed to broadening our research horizons, and we are grateful for your input.

13. p. 13, 344-349: reporting of the results is not systematic.

• Answer： Thank you for pointing out the need to improve the systematic reporting of our results in Section 3.4. We have carefully revised the section to present the findings in a more structured and organized manner. We hope that the modified text clearly communicates the results of our text-mining analysis and facilitates better understanding. We appreciate your valuable feedback, which has helped us enhance the quality of our paper. Thank you for your continued support and guidance.

14. p. 13 356-358: Do not understand the statement, and what is important and why.

• Answer： Thank you for your valuable feedback on this statement. After careful consideration, I have decided to remove this sentence from the text, as it indeed appears to deviate from the main message we intend to convey in the article. Eliminating it will help improve the overall clarity and understanding of the readers. We appreciate your insightful suggestion, which has been very helpful for our manuscript revision.

15. Discussion part is not coherent, systematic and do not clearly show the new knowledge the study produced. There are also new findings reported first time in this part, that should appear earlier in other sections of the article.

• Answer： Thank you for your valuable feedback on the discussion section. We acknowledge that the discussion part needs to be more coherent and systematic, as well as clearly show the new knowledge produced by the study. We have modified small portions of the discussion to maintain consistency and coherence. We really appreciate your insightful suggestions, which have been very helpful in improving the quality of our manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

...

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you again for your time and constructive feedback on our revised manuscript. We appreciate your recognition of the improvements made. We understand your concerns regarding the manuscript's scope and will continue to refine our work, keeping in mind the broader implications and suitability for the journal.

We value your guidance and will strive to address your concerns in our further revisions.

Best regards,

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Dear authors,

Many thanks for your revisions. It is great to see, that the article is moving in a right direction. Still I would wish more in-depth analysis and discussion in the conclusion about the earlier literature and knowledge and with your findings. Some smaller remarks:

1. Age of the college students should be presented
2. What are the major disciplines of these students? How does that affect your findings?
3. How the questionnaire was circulated among the students? Who were selected to answer?
4. Concept of "Revitalization of rural areas", please provide clear definition/discussion on this concept 1) why it isimportant, 2) how your study contributes on it.
5. Main Title: shuld it be "perceptions" in plural form?

I still wish you to push further the dialogue between earlier knowledge and your research findings and contributions to the discussions of sustainable development / revitalization of rural areas. Thank you.

Author Response

REVIEWER #3

Many thanks for your revisions. It is great to see, that the article is moving in a right direction. Still I would wish more in-depth analysis and discussion in the conclusion about the earlier literature and knowledge and with your findings. Some smaller remarks:

1. Age of the college students should be presented
2. What are the major disciplines of these students? How does that affect your findings?
3. How the questionnaire was circulated among the students? Who were selected to answer?
4. Concept of "Revitalization of rural areas", please provide clear definition/discussion on this concept 1) why it isimportant, 2) how your study contributes on it.
5. Main Title: shuld it be "perceptions" in plural form?

I still wish you to push further the dialogue between earlier knowledge and your research findings and contributions to the discussions of sustainable development / revitalization of rural areas. Thank you.

Reply:

Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your valuable feedback and insights on our manuscript. We appreciate your time and effort in providing detailed comments and suggestions.

We are grateful for your concerns and agree that a more in-depth analysis and discussion in the conclusion about the earlier literature and our findings could enhance the quality of our work. We will make sure to revise and incorporate your suggestions.

Regarding your specific comments:

1. Age of the college students should be presented

• Thank you for your valuable suggestion regarding the presentation of the college students' age in our study. We have presented this information in the methods section of our manuscript（Line147）. The age of the students is fairly evenly distributed between 19 and 26 years, which corresponds with the typical age range for college students. We hope this addresses your concern. We greatly appreciate your guidance and support in improving our manuscript. It is our sincere hope that these revisions align with your expectations. Thank you once again for your constructive feedback.

2. What are the major disciplines of these students? How does that affect your findings?

• Thank you for your insightful suggestion to include information about the major disciplines of the students in our study. We have revised the methodology section (Lines 148-150) to incorporate these details. The students involved in the study came from comprehensive universities with a broad range of majors. Japanese students were mainly from engineering and horticulture, while Chinese students were concentrated in arts and humanities. Given the diversity of disciplines among the participating students in both countries, we have not yet analyzed the impact of different majors on the research findings in this particular study. However, we acknowledge the importance of this aspect and will consider a more in-depth discussion on the influence of different disciplines in our future research. We appreciate your valuable feedback and guidance in improving our manuscript and hope that these changes meet your expectations.

3. How the questionnaire was circulated among the students? Who were selected to answer?

• Thank you for highlighting the need for more clarity regarding our questionnaire distribution process and respondent selection criteria. In response to your comments, we have expanded upon this in the methodology section of our paper. We have detailed how the questionnaires were disseminated among the students and have clarified the selection criteria for participants in our study（Lines 134-145）. For instance, a prerequisite for our respondents was having at least one experience visiting rural areas, and we also employed response time as a measure for filtering responses. We hope that these additional details elucidate our process and enhance the comprehension of our research methodology. We are immensely grateful for your invaluable feedback and hope that these revisions adequately address your concerns.

4. Concept of "Revitalization of rural areas", please provide clear definition/discussion on this concept 1) why it isimportant, 2) how your study contributes on it.

• Thank you for your insightful comments and for highlighting the importance of providing a clear definition and discussion on the concept of rural revitalization. We have updated our introduction to explain why this concept is significant and how our study contributes to it(Lines 23-36). We have detailed the importance of rural revitalization in ensuring balanced growth, addressing socio-economic disparities, preserving cultural heritage, and promoting environmental conservation. Furthermore, we have emphasized how our study contributes to this by analyzing university students' perceptions and attachment towards rural areas, which can offer valuable insights for the development of effective strategies to counter rural depopulation and decline. We appreciate your valuable feedback and hope these changes align with your suggestions

5. Main Title: shuld it be "perceptions" in plural form?

• Thank you for your suggestion regarding the title of our manuscript. We agree with your observation, and we believe that using the plural form "perceptions" would indeed be more fitting. This change will reflect the diverse views and experiences of the university students who participated in our study. We have revised the title accordingly in our manuscript. We really sincerely appreciate your insightful feedback and guidance throughout the revision process. It has greatly contributed to the improvement of our work. We hope that the revised manuscript now meets your expectations.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The theme is significant and the structure of the paper is clear. The methodology is convincing and clear all these qualifiy the paper and is suggested to be published. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. While the idea of the research is plausible and significant, the methods have major flaws that make it difficult to make any conclusions based on the data. 

In particular,  the sample size is extremely small given the huge population it was drawn from.

Second, it was not clear why the two populations of china and japan were selected. In other words, what makes the comparison an added value to the literature ? or the selection was only based on authors' affiliations?

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for the opportunity to read your paper! You address an interesting topic which is and particularly relevant for the reality of life. In addition to the basic criticism of the structure of your paper, which does not meet scientific standards, and the inadequate location of your study in the existing literature, you will find specific comments on each part of the paper below:

 

Abstract:

The terms " satisfaction " and " convenience " remain unclear. What is meant by this? Please clarify within the abstract (e.g. do you mean satisfaction with life, satisfaction with rural areas, satisfaction with politics?).

 

Introduction:

Overall, the introduction does not yet meet the standards of a scientific paper. A revised version should include: introduction of the topic, clear statement of research question(s), presentation of the relevance of the study, short summary of what is coming next.

 

Theory section:

A theory chapter is completely missing. For a scientific study, there must also be an explanation of the theory on which the study is based. Something like this can be found in the introduction, but this is the wrong place. Furthermore, a short list of other researchers who did something (lines 55-74) is not sufficient. What is needed within a new subchapter to be drafted is an introduction of the theoretical concept, an overview of the existing literature as well as a presentation of theory driven hypotheses for the following empirical study.

 

Materials and methods section:

This section does not fulfill the expectations. The sampling strategy needs to be described much more comprehensively. In addition, there is a need for list of variables including their descriptives as well as a presentation of the questionnaire used (this could be included in the appendix of the paper, for example). A descriptive account of the sample is also needed (for example, from which regions of each country the respondents come - this does seem to be a relevant aspect, as they pick up later in their paper).

Generally, a clear explanation of the method(s) used as well as the justification of the method selection is missing.  This needs to be added. In addition, an elaboration is needed on why the low N nevertheless qualifies for the present analyses.

 

Results section:

Long sections of summarizing what the reader can see from the table (lines 165-189 + 199-217) should be deleted. Instead, it is necessary to present a summary which is more like a synthesis.

 

Discussion section:

Shortcoming of the study formulated in lines 443 ff. remain unclear. Especially lines 456 à the reader is not interested to hear what your personal next research ideas are, but rather which future research should generally emerge from your current study and why. Lines 443-445 à confuses the reader, it is not of interest to tell what changes in mind you had yourself during the conduction of your study. The reader is rather interested in what shortcomings there are with your study, how you argue why this is still a valuable study and what further research could help to overcome these shortcomings.

 

Conclusion section:

This is not a conclusion but another summary of the empirical results. The conclusion as is can be deleted (or incorporated into the results section).

A new conclusion should consist of a short summary of the results and the following arguments from your discussion as well as an outlook both to further research and topic wise maybe an outlook towards the situation in China and Japan. For this reason, I recommend shifting your section on shortcomings (with the necessary revision) to the conclusion.

 

Other comments:

Research on the aspect of willingness to move to rural areas is very poor. “Are you highly motivated to move to a rural area in the future” questionable operationalization and not sufficient to speak of looking at this aspect. Also missing in this context is a discussion on housing and working options in rural areas.

 

Since the Journal Youth addresses an international readership, it would be helpful to include a subchapter on the Japanese and Chinese context relatively early in the paper. Interesting aspects of this are currently being presented in the discussion. It would be helpful if a brief overview of the two countries (in relation to the research topic) of your "case study" (as you later refer to it yourselve) is already given in a subchapter beforehand.