initial study, but is highlighted as a direction for future research.
Implications and RecommendationsWith the development of a measure that allows children to report levels of restorative components, a number of exciting avenues have been opened. First, the PRCS-C provides an opportunity for children to evaluate the perceived restorativeness of environments they frequent. This allows researchers investigating the role of the physical environment in children’s lives to include perceived restorativeness in studies they conduct. It also provides an opportunity for children to be involved in and contribute to such research. Any environment in which children spend time could be considered, including hospitals, day care centers, holiday program facilities and community playgrounds. Second, and more specifically, the restorative components play a key role in ART. With the development of the PRCS-C, ART can be evaluated from a child’s perspective; that is, children’s attentional capacity pre- and post- spending time in environments with varying levels of restorative components can be examined.
Future ART work could use the PRCS-C to evaluate the perceived restorativeness of specific environments and possible attentional advantages for children. For example, children who spend play periods on school grounds which comprise the five restorative components may exhibit academic and social benefits in the classroom (Faber Taylor et al. 2001). For those children with attentional difficulties, seeking out environments identified to be high in restoration potential would provide a possible resource for strengthening their attentional capacity.
The initial sex and age differences reported in restorative components, combined with prior work reporting sex and age differences in relationships with nature, indicate that separate consideration should be given to boys’ and girls’ environments. For example, separate playground areas or varied grade level access may be considered in co-education schools; single-sex schools might consider different types of playgrounds. The role of other areas such as the library or art room during classroom breaks could also be considered. Consideration of sex and age differences does extend to ART as a whole.
ConclusionThe current study reports the initial development and psychometric validation of the PRCS-C and provides a number of interesting findings. First, with items drawn from adult work, the adult factor structure was replicated and children reported a similar structure in the restorative components of their environments. Second, the measure distinguishes between two environments that are both familiar to children and in close proximity. Third, a small number of sex and age differences on the perceived restorative components and total perceived restorativeness are reported. Fourth, overall, playgrounds have higher restoration potential than libraries, consistent with prior research and theoretical proposals of the benefits of natural environments.
The results provide initial support for the PRCS-C and continued development and application of the measure in future research is warranted. It is hoped the PRCS-C provides an opportunity for restorative environment researchers to consider children in their work, and indeed, for child environment researchers to consider perceived restorativeness as a factor.
1. This paper was awarded Third Prize in the 2003 CYE Graduate Student Paper Award for Excellence in Research competition.
2. The author would like to thank Dr. Karin Laumann and Terry Hartig who generously allowed items from their adult scales to be adapted for this measure, the principals and pupils of participating schools for their interest and time, and the CYE reviewers for their comments and feedback.
Kathleen Bagot is a part-time Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Psychology, Monash University, Australia. Her research interests include the relationship between children and natural environments with a focus on beneficial cognitive and affective outcomes in line with principles of Positive Psycholo