al stage (Piaget 1980), it is not surprising these direct comparisons did not reveal differences between the younger and older children; it would suggest younger and older children in this limited age range (i.e., 8-11 years) experience these environments as more similar than boys and girls do.
When the total perceived restorativeness scores for boys and girls were compared for both environments, boys reported the playground as having higher restoration potential than girls. As the playground would contain more natural elements than the library, and prior research suggests a stronger association between girls and natural environments, than boys (Bagot and Gullone 2003; Faber Taylor et al. 2001, 2002), this could be considered an unexpected finding. Prior research, however, reports a relationship between boys and natural elements in play areas away from home (Faber Taylor et al. 2001), one example of which is school playgrounds. Boys and girls reported similar restoration potential for the library. When results for younger and older children were compared, both age groups reported similar levels of total perceived restorativeness for the two environments. That is, the playground was reported to have similar restoration potential for both younger and older groups. This was also reported with the library environment.
Overall, results indicate the PRCS-C is able to detect differences in the factor scores across groups of people, as would be expected when evaluating restoration potential of environments with different groups. Combining results for the comparisons across environments (i.e., comparing playground and library scores) and between groups (i.e., comparing results between boys and girls, and between younger and older children), indicates girls report the library to be more like their classroom and more interesting than the playground, and report the playground to have lower restoration potential than reported by boys. The only developmental difference was reported within environment comparisons with older children reported the library to be more interesting than the playground, whereas younger children reported the two environments to be of similar interest.
Evaluation of MeasureThe findings reported here are important for three reasons. First, they indicate the measure can distinguish between different types of environments. Second, they establish that the measure can detect differences across different groups of people. Both are key criteria when determining the validity of a measure of restorative environments. Third, the overall results are in keeping with predictions (i.e., the library should score lower than the playground as it would more closely resemble a classroom than outdoors), supporting the fact that the PRCS-C is functioning as would be expected. The finding that Fascination scored higher in libraries than playgrounds is intriguing and is attributed to the girls’ and older children’s responses. Although too early to determine the implications of these differences, it does add to the small body of research reporting sex differences within children’s environmental research (Bagot and Gullone 2003, Faber Taylor, et al. 2001, 2002), and indicates that sex differences should be considered where sample size allows.
Limitations and Future ResearchAlthough deemed a fair size and adequate by the ten participants per item rule (Tabachnick and Fidell 1996), the sample of 225 participants has potentially influenced the factor structure outcomes through low eigen values for some of the factors. It is argued that a larger sample would yield strengthened results, an issue to be addressed by future research.
The key limitation regarding the outcome of the measure is the Extent factor. It contains only two items and had a low internal consistency result. Both items address the Scope component of Extent, and did not cover Connectedness. Future work would do well to consider additional items for this component.
The current study’s methodology focused on adapting items drawn from adult measures. The inclusion of qualitati