 Being Away factors were sub-titled Physical (instead of Escape) and Psychological (instead of Novelty), to simplify interpretation.
It should be noted that results are reported here (see Table 1) for Factor Analysis via Maximum Likelihood as the focus is on the theoretical structure of the data/measure. This provides a more stringent test than PCA as both error and communality variance have been removed from results.
Library data yielded three factors comprising the same items revealed in the playground data– Being Away- Physical, Being Away- Psychological and Fascination. Compatibility, however, was split over two factors and an Extent factor was not revealed (a priori Extent items were either not loading at all, or loading onto the Compatibility or Being Away– Physical factors).
I determined that factors for both environments would be based on the 15 items retained from the Playground data as they met both theoretical and statistical criteria. Although the library data yielded a similar factor structure, it did not exactly replicate the structure revealed within the playground data; that is, no Extent factor was revealed.
Cronbach’s alpha was calculated for the five factors for both the playground and the library data to determine internal consistency. As shown in Table 2, highest values were yielded with the four-item factor Fascination and, as would be expected, the lowest values were yielded with the two items of Extent.
Correlations between the five factors were conducted and are reported in Table 3. All associations across both environments were positive and significant except for Fascination and Being Away– Physical for the playground. Generally the relationships between the factors were stronger for the library environment.
In order to evaluate whether the PRCS-C would distinguish between environments, results for the playground and the library environments were compared. A mean item score for each of the five factors was computed for both environments. As shown in Table 4, means for the five factors and the total perceived restorativeness score (computed by adding values of the five factors) were higher for playground than library, except for Fascination. Six (five factors, one total score) dependent samples t-tests were conducted yielding significant differences (i.e., p<.001) for all values (t values are reported in Table 4). The playground environment scored significantly higher than the library on Being Away- Psychological, Being Away- Physical, Compatibility and Extent. The library however, scored significantly higher than playground on Fascination. The total perceived restorativeness score of the playground was significantly higher than the library. These results (i.e., factor scores across environments) were then examined by sex and age group (refer to Table 4). Girls and older children reported similar results to the total sample; that is, the playground scores were higher across all factors and the total perceived restorativeness score, except that Fascination scored significantly lower. For boys and younger children however, the level of Fascination was equal across both environments.
To investigate whether the PRCS-C yielded differences between groups of people, mean factor scores were calculated for each factor across both environments and are reported in Table 4. Ten (five factors x two environments) independent samples (sex) t-tests were conducted (Bonferroni adjusted significance alpha .05/10 = .005). Results revealed that boys scored significantly higher than girls on the playground Being Away- Psychological factor [t(223)=3.29, p=.001]. Results also revealed boys scored higher than girls on the library Being Away- Physical factor [t(223)=2.54, p=.01]. Independent sample t-tests were repeated by age group, with significance alpha again at .005. No significant differences were revealed between younger and older children. The total perceived restorativeness score was also examined by sex and age for each environment. Two (environment) independent samples (sex) t-tests and two (environment) indepe