A measure of restorative quality in environments

Restorative environments help renew psychological resources depleted in environments that do not fully support intended functions. The design of restorative environments can be aided and underlying theory elaborated with a means for measuring psychological factors thought to work in restorative experiences. This paper reports on four studies carried out to develop such a measure, the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS). Each study employed several strategies for assessing reliability and validity. Factor analysis was used to examine the stability of the measure's factor structure across different sites and studies. To assess criterion, convergent, and discriminant validities, measures of emotional states and other environmental qualities were also completed for each site. The sites selected for evaluation differed on theoretically relevant dimensions (natural-urban; outdoor-indoor), enabling checks on the PRS's sensitivity to meaningful differences among environments. The results were consistent across the studies, which also involved different subject populations (American, Swedish, Finnish) and presentation modes (on-site, video, photographic slides). Although the factor analytic results introduce some interpretive qualifications, substantial validity coefficients and sensitivity to meaningful differences between sites speak to the utility of the measure.