ve methods such as focus groups and semi-structured interviews could further understanding of children’s perceptions and experiences of their environments. In turn, additional items not previously representative of the five factors in adult work could be included and further examination of the factor structure reported by children be conducted.
Understanding the development of restoration and the role of restorative environments across the lifespan requires measures suitable for each developmental stage. Work with those in early adulthood is underway, and this initial study indicates that children should be considered in restorative environment research, specifically emphasizing late childhood (i.e., aged 8 to 11). The importance and distinction of restorative environments for different developmental stages is yet to be investigated. Although younger and older children generally reported similar results in this study, the sample did not fully cover any developmental period. The inclusion of two or more developmental stages would more likely yield differences. With a measure of the restorative components available, an evaluation of the restoration potential of children’s environments can be made and thus contribute to the theoretically proposed components of the restoration of attentional capacity in children. Consideration of the relationship between the restorative components individually or combined and ART with individual factors such as preferences and attitudes also awaits future research.
A measure of the level of naturalness within environments would have been of interest in this study. Obviously school playgrounds have a higher level of natural elements than school libraries, and results reported support the proposal that restorative environments are more likely to be natural environments. A measure of levels of nature, however, would have facilitated the determination of whether the measure could distinguish between familiar, everyday outdoor environments on that basis. This was beyond the scope of this 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