Monsoureh-Rezasoltani

Ismail Said

Methods for Evaluating Responses of Children with Outdoor Environments

14-15 November 2009

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

INTRODUCTION

Outdoor environments shape the children, physically, socially and emotionally.To understand how the environment shapes the children, many researchers in

environment psychology, sociology and childhood development utilized different techniques.

This study focuses on discussing research method on outdoor environments as children’s play settings.

These methods can be categorized into two major typesVisual

Structured

Structured methods : methods which can be performed in verbal and non-verbal reports, and are significant because children are the best people who can explain their experience and perception of their environments (Greig and Taylor, 1999).

Visual methods : some complementary methods which are utilized by researchers to get the best result.

To suggest some methods which are relevant to do research with children connected to their outdoor environments;

AIM AND METHOD (Criteria for selection of articles )

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

Criteria for choosing these studies included

The context focuses on aspects of urban outdoor environment. The methods are both qualitative and quantitative.

Context

Method

Issues

Living surroundings

Urban parks

playgrounds The issues were connected to children and their outdoor environments

METHOD (Method of analysis )

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

Context (e.g. elementary school)

Subject connected to children, their age and outdoor environment

Methods that were used to collect the data.

Articles was summarized and classified in terms of several dimensions

The major purpose of analysis was to emphasize some special methods in studying with children regarding to outdoor environments.

Environmental contexts in all studies are actual and their range are from general environments to special spaces include:

Residential neighborhood

Grassy location

Park

Playground

School yard

Although the studies represent a great

diversity of settings, school playgrounds

were the most frequent context.

FINDING and DISCUSSION (Empirical methods )

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

Percentage of used approaches:

Questionnaire 40%

Interview 35%

Observation 25%

Drawing map 25%

Photographing 10%

Instrument 5%

Group discussion 10%

Individual interview 25%

Using of mixed methods to get the best results

Interviews accessibility to the inner world of children: (Greig and Taylor, 1999)

FeelingThoughtOpinion

interviews (as verbal reports)

Adults’ interview

Children’s interview

Parents

TeachersIndividual interview

Group discussion to speak about their liked, disliked, and favorite environments

to talk about their photos which take in their neighborhoods as a liked or disliked place

Children were asked

FINDING and DISCUSSION (Empirical methods )

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

PhotographingIn some studies, the researcher need to know about children’s interests, and this may not to gain through other research methods.

Researchers give children

Instant camera (Francis and Lorenzo, 2002)

Disposable camera (Jutras, 2009)

FINDING and DISCUSSION (Empirical methods )

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

Questionnaire It can be designed and sent to many people swiftly

It can also analyzed easily

Types of questionnaire

Computerize

Online

written

Direct observation Observing children’s behavior Listening to their conversations Recording them to analyze

The method could portrait slices and complexities of children’s lives (McDevitt and Ormrod, 2002).

FINDING and DISCUSSION (Empirical methods )

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

Standardized Instruments(Page et al., 2009)

Collecting the data may be too long.

Gathering the data through other ways is impossible.

The instrument will motivate the children to participate in the survey.

Bec

ause

+

The data is recorded and analyzed using the statistical software such as SPSS.

FINDING and DISCUSSION (Empirical methods )

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

The researchers need to utilize special methods as complementary methods to do research with children.

Indicates children’s inner mind (Greig and Taylor, 1999).

Measurement techniques of drawing

Sketch map (Ahmadi and Taniguchi/ 2007)

Blank map (Ahmadi and Taniguchi/ 2007)

Mental map (van Vliet, 1983)

The easiest approaches in completion of methods in doing research with childrenDrawing

FINDING and DISCUSSION (Empirical methods )

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

Analyzing sketch map by assessing

OrientationStructure of the routesDetails

A sheet of paper given to children to draw sketch maps of home-school way.

Source: Rissotto, A. and Tonucci, F. (2002)

Blank map

Children were given aerial map with some key elements in it to find the situation.

Children were asked to identify some data that the researcher needs to know.

Home

School

Blank mapSource: Rissotto and Tonucci (2002)

FINDING and DISCUSSION (Empirical methods )

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

Mental map

A sheet of paper is given to children to draw mental map.

Children were not given any key elements in the map.

For instance, mental map from their home to school.

Mental mapSource: www.urbantick.blogspot.com

Choosing the suitable approach for doing research with children is concerned with nature of research questions, the participants, and what a researcher want to do with them.

SUMMARY

All research methods point to qualitative and quantitative methods.

There can be relationships between qualitative and quantitative methods.

These methods have potentials to be overlapped to each other.

In many of these studies, researchers have chosen two types of methods: qualitative and quantitative.

Two different types of method to do research with children in outdoor environments

Visual method Structured

method

In some of these general two methods, researcher involves in methods directly such as observation.

There are also indirectly methods such as photographing and behavioral mapping which is divided into three types; sketch, blank and mental map.

some methods are organized and prepared before, then researcher ask the respondents to answer such as questionnaire in three types: computerized, online, written, and structured interview in two types: individual and group, or to utilize such as standardized instruments such as GPS and accelerometer.

SUMMARY

However

Bec

ause

The

refo

re

SUMMARY (Continued)

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

In order to get the best finding, the results of qualitative and quantitative are triangulated.

The results of used methods related to children at outdoor environments

STRUCTURED METHOD

VISUAL METHOD

BEHAVIORAL MAPPING

PHOTOGRAPHING

OBSERVATION

SKETCH MAP

BLANK MAP

MENTAL MAP

QUESTIONNAIRE

INTERVIEW

STANDARDISED INSTRUMENT

COMPUTERIZED

ONLINE SURVEY

WRITTEN SURVEY

INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEW

GROUP DISCUSSION

GPS

ACCELEROMETER

INDIRECTLY

INDIRECTLY

DIRECTLY

THE END

1st National Conference on Environment –Behaviour Studies

Thank you for your attention