Restauracion Cognitiva

Children, Youth and Environments 14(1), 2004

Perceived Restorative Components: A Scale for Children1, 2
Department of Psychology Monash University, Australia

Kathleen L. Bagot

Citation: Bagot, Kathleen L. “Perceived Restorative Components; A Scale for Children.” Children, Youth and Environments 14(1), 2004: 107-129.

Comment on This Article

This study reports on the developmentand psychometric validation of a perceived restorative components scale for children (PRCS-C). Children (n=112 boys, n=113 girls) aged 8 to 11 years completed an initial pool of 23 items addressing the components of a restorative environment to assess two familiar, everyday environments- their school playground and their school library. Factor analysis indicated a five-factor model (Being Away–Physical, Being Away- Psychological, Fascination, Compatibility and Extent) of 15 items best fit the data, consistent with prior adult restorativeness measure research and fitting within Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory. Satisfactory internal consistency was found for four of the five factors, with a two-item construct of Extent being lowest. School playgrounds had significantly higherrestoration potential than school libraries, when compared with school classrooms, indicating divergent validity of the measure. Results were examined by sex and age and differences reported as a broad indicator of the measure’s ability to differentiate between groups of people’s reports of perceived restorativeness and possible developmental differences.

Abstract

Keywords: children, restorativeenvironments, attention restoration
theory, playground, school library

© 2004 Children, Youth and Environments

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Article Contents Attention Restoration Theory .........................................................109 Being Away ..............................................................................110 Extent.....................................................................................111 Fascination ...............................................................................111 Compatibility ............................................................................112 Restorative Component Measures...................................................112 Method....................................................................................114 Participants ..............................................................................114 Measures .................................................................................115 Procedure.................................................................................116 Results....................................................................................116 Discussion...................................................................................120 Playground Data........................................................................120 Library Data .............................................................................120 PRCS-C ....................................................................................122 EnvironmentDifferences ............................................................122 Group Differences......................................................................123 Evaluation of Measure ................................................................124 Limitations and Future Research ..................................................124 Implications and Recommendations.............................................125 Conclusion ..................................................................................126 Endnotes ....................................................................................126 References ..................................................................................127

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Research into environments that are...