Restorative environments have been extensively examined in environmental psychology, particularly in natural or recreational settings. However, the potential for restorativeness in everyday environments—such as the workplace—remains underexplored. Addressing this gap, we developed and validated the Restorativeness at Work Scale (R@WS), a new instrument designed to assess the perceived restorative quality of physical work environments.
Grounded in Attention Restoration Theory (ART), the R@WS captures four core dimensions: fascination, being-away, coherence, and scope. The dimension of compatibility was intentionally excluded due to its overlap with non-physical and organizational factors. This presentation highlights key theoretical and methodological contributions from a multi-phase, mixed-method validation process.
In the qualitative phase, we conducted interviews with employees across diverse work settings to generate items that reflect ART constructs within workplace contexts. The quantitative phase involved rigorous psychometric testing, including exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, reliability assessment, and tests for measurement invariance across occupational groups and gender. Results confirmed the scale's validity and robustness.
The findings offer a theoretical extension of ART by demonstrating its applicability beyond natural environments, into cognitively demanding, task-oriented settings. Methodologically, the study emphasizes the importance of item contextualization, dimensional refinement, and validation procedures tailored to complex indoor environments.
The R@WS provides researchers and practitioners with a reliable, theoretically informed tool to evaluate how workspaces contribute to cognitive restoration and well-being. It also supports the design and assessment of environmental interventions in organisational settings where traditional restorativeness measures (e.g., PRS) may not be suitable.