Analysis of students' positive emotions around the green space in the university campus during the COVID-19 pandemic in China

The varied restorative values of campus landscapes to students' well-being: evidence from a Chinese University

BACKGROUND

The literature on therapeutic landscapes highlights that the university campus landscape has restorative effects on students. This deserves more scholarly attention since mental health has become an important issue among university students. However, existing empirical studies have revealed mixed evidence with little attention to the heterogeneity across the design and, therefore, the potential therapeutic effects across different landscapes.

METHOD

This research examined how 13 landscape sites on a university campus might be differentially related to student well-being. These sites were identified from a variety of sources (campus design documents, photos used in the university's social media posts, and interviews with a small group of students) to represent a comprehensive list of places that students might visit. The data was collected in a large online survey of a Chinese university (n = 2,528). We asked about students' use of individual landscape sites and the associated motivations for visits, and measured well-being using a perceived stress scale and overall evaluation of the happiness level. Bivariate analysis was used to explore the zero-order associations between landscape use and well-being. OLS (for stress) and logistic regressions (for happiness) were conducted to further evaluate the associations after controlling the student background variables and potential correlations of uses across different landscapes.

RESULTS

Among 13 landscape sites, four sites had significant positive associations with either or both measures of well-being after controlling for the student characteristics and use of the other landscape sites. There was also an additive benefit of visiting more landscapes. Compared to those who did not frequently visit any of the sites, well-being had a significant stepwise increase among those who frequently visited one or two and more sites. One site that was significantly related to both measures of well-being only offered distant views of landscapes, but it was right next to the study areas.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates the heterogeneity of restorative effects across different landscapes on campus. The findings suggest that effective landscape design that aims to promote student well-being should be placed close to stressors (i.e., where they study), and between where they study and live to offer students opportunities to break from the common routines and to relax. The findings hold greater relevance for universities in China and institutions with similar student campus lifestyles, occupancies, and behavior patterns worldwide.

The health perception of urban green spaces and its emotional impact on young adults: an empirical study from three cities in China

Introduction

Exposure to green space can bring many benefits to physical and mental health, but in China, the attractiveness of green space to youth groups seems to be not significant. The question of how to encourage young people to go out of the house to better perceive green space, enjoy nature, and promote physical and mental health is on our minds.

Methods

This study combines young people's green space perception, green space use, and purpose of visit to explore its impact on the emotional health of youth groups, combined with the PANAS psychological data scale, an online questionnaire survey of 426 residents (18-35  years old) in three Chinese cities, and was used to construct a multiple regression model and AMOS structural equations.

Results and discussion

The results of the study showed that, firstly, environmental attractiveness, environmental odor, and number of facilities were the key factors influencing adolescents' landscape perception evaluation, while activity space, environmental odor, and environmental attractiveness had a greater impact on adolescents' emotional well-being. Second, among adolescents' visit purposes, socializing and fitness were more likely to help them generate positive emotions while resting and viewing activities were effective in helping them alleviate negative emotions. In addition, in terms of usage, residents who took public transportation as well as those who arrived on foot were the most emotionally healthy. The findings of this paper provide insights for public policymakers, urban planners, and landscape architects to better encourage youth participation in green spaces when they are installed.

Research and evaluation on students' emotional attachment to campus landscape renewal coupling emotional attachment scale and public sentiment analysis: a case study of the "Heart of Forest" in Beijing Forestry University

In the era of stock renewal, the construction of university campuses in China's first-tier cities has shifted from demolition and construction to renewal and upgrading, in which public landscape space is the main environment for students' daily life, learning and entertainment. Especially during the outbreak of the recent COVID-19 epidemic, it has become an important way for students to interact with nature and obtain emotional healing. In the existing studies, there is a lack of discussion on the correlation between the spatial characteristics of the updated campus landscape and students' emotional attachment, and there are few quantitative studies. Based on this, this paper takes the "Heart of Forest" landscape space as an example, and integrates multi-dimensional quantitative methods including emotional attachment scale and public semantic analysis to study and evaluate the characteristics of landscape space that affect students' emotional attachment. The results show that: (1) Overall, the landscape space renewal of the Heart of Forest provides students with positive emotional experiences and effectively enhances students' emotional attachment as well as sense of belonging to the campus. (2) Among them, the material characteristics of the site including nature-related elements, materials, structures play a positive role in promoting the vast majority of students in the process of establishing emotional attachment, which is particularly obvious for students majoring in landscape, architecture and urban planning. (3) Whether the public social space can effectively provide students with a good emotional experience is closely related to the frequency and purpose of students' use of the space. (4) The interactive characteristics such as changeability and playability fail to promote emotional attachment because of lacking of management and maintenance. The renewal and transformation of the "Heart of Forest" landscape space is generally successful in promoting students' emotional attachment, and provides a reference for the future campus landscape renewal design from different angles. In addition, the quantitative study of emotional attachment constructed in this paper coupled with multi-dimensional data provides a method for the evaluation of students' emotional experience of campus landscape.