Scale Development for Environmental Perception of Public Space.

Area of Science:

• Environmental Psychology
• Urban Planning
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Subjective environmental perception significantly influences the use and experience of public spaces.
• Existing measures may not comprehensively capture the multifaceted nature of environmental perception.
• A validated psychometric scale is needed to systematically assess these perceptions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a psychometric scale for measuring the subjective environmental perception of public spaces.
• To identify the core affective and cognitive factors that constitute environmental perception.

Main Methods:

• Literature review to generate an initial pool of 85 items related to environmental perception.
• Online survey administered to 1,650 participants rating items on animated public space images.
• Principal component analyses (PCA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) for scale development.

Main Results:

• Identified eight core factors underlying environmental perception: two affective (comfort, activity) and six cognitive (legibility, enclosure, complexity, crime potential, wildlife, lighting).
• The final scale comprises 30 items (8 affective, 22 cognitive).
• The identified factors provide a robust framework for understanding user perceptions of public spaces.

Conclusions:

• The developed psychometric scale effectively measures subjective environmental perception of public spaces.
• The eight identified factors offer a comprehensive model for assessing public space attributes.
• The scale has practical applications in urban design, planning, and environmental psychology research.