Research on the psychologically restorative effects of campus common spaces from the perspective of health

Abstract

Contemporary college students are suffering from increasingly serious psychological health problems, such as attention fatigue, psychological stress and negative emotions. A growing body of evidence has revealed that restorative environment design is conducive to psychological health. As the main choice of venue for students’ daily activities, campus common spaces are supposed to be restorative to some extent. Given the above, the author studied 22 common spaces in the South China University of Technology (SCUT) Wushan Campus from the perspective of college students’ behavioral patterns based on theories pertaining to restorative environments, then constructed a structural equation model (SEM) analyzing the psychologically restorative effects exerted by the characteristics of campus common spaces upon college students through a scale design and questionnaire survey. With the analysis of 478 valid questionnaires, the research found that the characteristics of campus common spaces with psychologically restorative effects mainly comprise the architectural environment, landscape environment, rest facilities and activity facilities. Among them, the characteristics of activity facilities and the landscape environment have the greatest impact on psychologically restorative effects, accounting for 33 and 30% of the total effects, respectively; they are followed by those of the architectural environment, which accounts for 21% of the total effects; those of the rest facilities have the least impact, accounting for 16% of the total effects. The research also found that the characteristics of campus common spaces can both directly influence college students’ psychological recovery and produce psychologically restorative effects mediated by college students’ behavioral patterns. The mediation effect of college students’ behavioral patterns accounts for approximately 41% of the total effect of psychological restoration, in which the psychologically restorative effect of dynamic exercise behaviors is 2.5 times that of static leisure behaviors. The research reveals how the characteristics of campus common spaces promote the psychological restoration of college students, and it provides inspiration for healthy environment design in campus common spaces.