ntification only) were included in the item, i.e., “When I am in the playground, I do different things than in the classroom” or “The things I like to do can be done in the library.” Although these items contain direct language, it was deemed to be appropriate to facilitate accurate completion by children as young as eight years.
Children were asked to think about how true each statement was for them and to circle the answer that suited them best. The response scale was a five-point Likert scale (0-Not at all, 1-A little, 2-Sometimes, 3-A lot, 4-Completely) with only the words printed across the page under each question for children to circle; that is, there was not a numbered scale on the page. Children readily answered questions by circling the answer appropriate for them. Items for each factor were distributed throughout the questionnaire, so no items for the same factor followed each other.
Questionnaire packages comprised a demographics page (items included grade level, age and sex) and the restorative component items to be completed for both the school playground and the school library. Approximately ten minutes separated the completion of the two sets of restorative component items (i.e., for the two environments) during which timed performance tasks were completed. Children did not exhibit any signs of fatigue and indicated they enjoyed participating in the research. The data presented comes from a larger study designed to evaluate a number of measures for children (i.e., restorative components, attention performance). Only the psychometric evaluation of the PRCS-C is reported here. The items were presented in the same order, but were completed for playground and library in counterbalanced order across schools.
ProcedureAfter the study was approved by the Monash University Ethics Committee and Victorian governing bodies of schools, principals of schools were approached to participate in the study. Children in grades three to six of participating schools received an explanatory statement and consent form for their parents’ review. In addition to parental approval, children’s assent was also obtained prior to data collection (note: two children decided not to participate).
Data collection was conducted during school hours in groups of up to approximately 30 children, based on children’s grade levels (Grades 3 and 4 together, Grades 5 and 6 together). The majority of participants could see a small section of their playground (from the classroom window), but not the library during completion. Items were read aloud to all groups of children, taking approximately 30 minutes, with older children working at their own pace. Children were encouraged to ask questions if they were unsure of the meaning of any words and advised there were no right or wrong answers. Once complete, children were advised of the purpose of the study and thanked for their time.
ResultsData was analysed using SPSS (v. 11.0) and included factor analysis to determine the factor structure of the restorative components measure. Resulting factors were then examined for internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha, with factor scores being compared across environments and by sex and age via dependent and independent t-tests. Factor analysis was chosen over Principal Components Analysis (PCA), as a theoretical solution was of primary interest.
First, missing value analysis was conducted. Three participants had more than half of their data missing and were therefore deleted. The majority of variables had less than 1 percent of data missing and no variable had more than 1.8 percent missing (i.e., four participants did not answer). Missing values were replaced by estimated values via Expectation Maximisation (EM) method and were deemed to reflect actual values. The data formed part of a larger study where univariate outliers were retracted to ±3.29 standard deviations from the mean (no univariate outliers for the restorative components items) and two multivariate outliers were reviewed and deleted. No major violations of factor analysis assumptions were detect