How to Measure the Restorative Quality of Environments: The PRS-11

Abstract

The Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) has been reported relatively frequently in the literature, despite the psychometric and factorial properties of the scale not being well established. We argue that a detailed understanding of the meaning of individual items is the proper starting point for scale development and used this approach to develop shorter (11-item rather than 26-item) parallel versions in both Italian and English. Data collected from samples of Italian (n = 230) and English speakers (n = 100) were analysed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), comparing a 5 models based on previous published research and underlying theory. A four-factor model that mirrored four elements of Attention Restoration Theory (ART) had the best fit to the data. The resulting composite scale was invariant across nationality and gender.