Attitudes toward urban green spaces: integrating questionnaire survey and collaborative GIS techniques to improve attitude measurements

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2004.02.007Get rights and content

Abstract

Attitudes influence behavior towards urban green spaces. But determining attitudes toward urban green spaces is not well operationalized in urban planning research. A study was conducted in the West Island, Montreal, Canada to elaborate the design and development of a valid and reliable instrument to measure the dimensions of citizen attitudes toward urban green spaces. The use of qualitative and quantitative phases in the instrument design strengthened the operationalization of the attitude concept. In the qualitative stage, a novel approach integrating collaborative geographic information system (GIS) techniques and informal interviews generated complementary insights about the spatial and non-spatial factors influencing attitude towards urban green spaces. Affinity analysis aggregated the issues into three homogeneous categories that guided the construction of questionnaire items. A self-administered mail-back questionnaire was developed and distributed to 322 households using a multistage cluster sampling strategy; 179 questionnaires were returned (55.6%). In the quantitative phase, factor analysis and reliability analysis were applied to the items set to create a valid attitude measurement scale. The analysis shows that households are characterized by a two-factor attitude structure towards urban green spaces: behavior and usefulness. It is concluded that urban green spaces attitude is a multi-dimensional construct. The implications for green spaces planning are outlined.

Introduction

The collective evidence from environmental psychology and landscape research has pointed to individual attitude as an influential factor in shaping land use transformation (Erickson et al., 2002, Jacobson and Marynowski, 1997, Luzar and Diagne, 1999). Attitude is conceptualized in many ways from it being a state of readiness for mental and physical activity, to the inclination for an individual to evaluate objects or aspects in a favorable or unfavorable manner (Dawes, 1972). This study considers attitude as a learned and summary evaluation that influences thoughts and actions (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980, Gerd and Wanke, 2002). In this interpretation attitude is a complex construct with cognitive (knowledge), affective (feelings) and conative (behavioral) components (Walmsley and Lewis, 1984). As such attitude is formed and affected by socio-economic, cultural and biophysical interactions. Attitude is also a powerful predictor of behavior and thus an important tool in determining human response to policies and planning decisions (Kaiser et al., 1999, Tuan, 1990). Also, attitudes at the local scale can impact aggregated level observations as individuals are behaviorally and psychologically distinct because of genetic and environmental influences.

Measuring individual attitude towards urban green spaces has received sparse coverage in the environment and planning literature. One reason may be due to the greater importance that natural forests have occupied in global environmental concerns with the result that local land use types such as urban green spaces have not been comprehensively studied. Another reason is that local environments have complex social characteristics and it has been technically easier and more cost-effective to generalize research results using coarser scales of analysis. However, this approach risks incurring ecological and exception fallacy problems (Trochim, 1999). In the ecological fallacy, inferences from aggregate to individual measures are unreliable and not able to capture the intricate local attitude dynamics. In the exception fallacy, outlier measurements distort the degree to which aggregated data can represent reality. Accurately characterizing the complexity of individual attitude can better support the integration of all interest groups, optimize local benefits, and increase success in community planning efforts by using cooperative management strategies (Gerd and Wänke, 2002).

Attitude is not directly observable and therefore strategies such as inferred cues and interrogation using questionnaire surveys have been the methods of choice in attitude measurements (Dawes, 1972). Therefore, effective attitude measurement depends on its systematic behavior and the reliability of the system used to measure it. In measuring attitude, local scale analysis and multivariate statistical analysis approaches are needed to simultaneously explore the dimensions of the attitude construct in order to produce more accurate and robust local scale representations. The evidence in environmental psychology indicates that attitude towards the environment is a multi-dimensional construct with the common components being value orientations, demographics, knowledge, and context (Blake, 2001, Lakhan and Lavalle, 2002, Schultz and Zelezny, 1999). The usual questionnaire approach to measure urban green spaces attitude is to include a range of semantic-differential (with good/bad options for example) and Likert items (with agree/disagree options for example) to operationalize the attitude construct. Correlations and aggregate scores of the item responses are used to assess attitude. But one challenge is how to select representative items for inclusion in the questionnaire as attitude may also be influenced by the spatial environment surrounding the individual (Downs and Stea, 1977).

Collaborative geographical information systems (GIS) provide a foundation to integrate the spatial component into attitude measurements. A collaborative GIS is a networked collection of computer hardware, geographical software, and interest groups within a traditional workshop type setting (Armstrong, 1994). The purpose is to capture, store, manage and visualize spatial data and knowledge to guide unstructured problems towards solutions and new learning opportunities. During the collaborative GIS process, participants combine knowledge and share, explain, analyze, and visualize map-based data to elaborate issues and challenges (Faber et al., 1996). The foundation of the collaborative GIS approach is rooted in the theory of communicative action where discourse or language based communication and argumentation are used as formal procedures to elaborate ideas and agree on decisions (Habermas, 1984). Digital maps are used to support and document knowledge and provide an environment for oral and visual stimulation of attitudes. The collaborative GIS provides benefits such as real-time interactions, inclusiveness, social learning, and awareness about the shared challenges that need common solutions (Balram et al., 2003, Godschalk et al., 1992, Roche and Humeau, 1999). But focus group workshops and interviews applied separately can reveal different valuation information (Kaplowitz and Hoehn, 2001). By integrating these in a spatial context using the collaborative GIS, a broad range of spatial and non-spatial issues associated with attitude is addressed. The integration creates opportunities to improve content validity by making all the issues associated with urban green spaces attitude clearer.

The goal of this study is to design and develop a valid and reliable survey instrument to measure attitudes towards urban green spaces by integrating traditional survey methods with collaborative GIS techniques. A key strategy in the implementation is the use of a local level analysis that links attitudes about finer scale “home areas” with coarser scale “city areas” to capture a broad perspective about attitudes towards urban green spaces. The specific objectives are to:

  • (a)

    review existing research on measuring urban green spaces attitude;

  • (b)

    integrate spatial understanding into the attitude measurement process;

  • (c)

    develop a survey instrument to measure urban green spaces attitude;

  • (d)

    evaluate the reliability and validity of the measuring instrument;

  • (e)

    discuss the findings and implications for urban green spaces planning.

Section snippets

Attitudes toward urban green spaces

Urban green spaces provide various social, economic and ecological roles including therapeutic benefits, a desired surrounding for raising children, social integration, conservation easements, and community development potential (Hague and Siegel, 2002, Miller, 1997, Milton, 2002). In this study, urban green spaces are considered as urban areas now covered with vegetation, natural or maintained, public or private, as opposed to areas that are paved or have buildings on them. Community parks,

Study context

The study area was the communities at the western end (West Island) of Montreal Island, Canada (Fig. 1). Before 2002 the West Island consisted of 11 municipalities (Dorval, Roxboro, Pierrefonds, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Point-Claire, St. Genevieve, Kirkland, Senneville, Beaconsfield, St. Anne-de-Bellevue, and Baie-D’Urfe) with varying physical size, landscape characteristics, and demographics. These variations create different demands on the physical and environmental needs of these communities and

Overall research strategy

The attitude measurement instrument was developed within an integrated multi-method process involving qualitative and quantitative stages (Fig. 2). Explicitly representing the spatial and non-spatial aspects in the design process integrated a broad range of factors that can improve the reliability of the attitude measurement. Reliability refers to the consistency with which a measurement can be replicated (De Vaus, 2002). The qualitative stage used semi-structured interviews and a collaborative

Demographic profile

The overall response rate for the survey was 55.6%. This high percentage controlled for response bias effects and can be attributed to two main sources: the relevance of the topic to citizens, and the direct contact of the researchers with citizens when delivering the questionnaires. Those who refused to accept the main questionnaire also refused to answer a shorter questionnaire. The combined strategy of creating a professional survey instrument, minimizing respondents efforts to complete the

Conclusion

This study has outlined a comprehensive approach to measure the concept of attitudes toward urban green spaces. The urban green spaces attitude concept was not well operationalized in previous studies. A novel multi-method approach that integrated insights from semi-structured interviews and a collaborative GIS workshop produced an objective set of connected issues. Integrating the semi-structured and collaborative GIS data-gathering activities was significant in that spatial perspectives were

Acknowledgements

The financial support of the International Council for Canadian Studies (ICCS-CIEC) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Canada to the first and second authors, respectively, are acknowledged. The survey implementation was funded from a Fonds Formation Chercheurs & Aide Recherche (FCAR) grant awarded to Dr. Thomas Meredith and Dr. John E. Lewis (McGill University, Canada). Any Gabour and the second author provided French translations for all the survey documents.

Shivanand Balram is an MPhil graduate of the University of Cambridge, and a Lecturer in the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Guyana. Presently he is concluding doctoral studies at McGill University, and is also a researcher in the Spatial Analysis and Modeling Laboratory, Simon Fraser University, Canada. His nearly 12 years of academic, industry, and consulting experience have focused on geographic information systems and science, collaborative geovisualization, urban planning,

References (56)

  • Adams, J., 1992. Community response to environmental change: a case study of Montreal’s West Island. MA Thesis....
  • Ajzen, I., Fishbein, M., 1980. Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior. Prentice-Hall, New...
  • M.P. Armstrong

    Requirements for the development of GIS-based group decision-support systems

    J. Am. Soc. Inform. Sci.

    (1994)
  • S. Balram et al.

    Achieving effectiveness in stakeholder participation using the GIS-based collaborative Spatial Delphi Methodology

    J. Environ. Assess. Policy Manage.

    (2003)
  • D.E. Blake

    Contextual effects of environmental attitudes and behavior

    Environ. Behav.

    (2001)
  • CBED, 2002. Community Based Environmental Decision Support Group, Accessed: 2002-01-01....
  • G.A.J. Churchill

    A paradigm for developing better measures of marketing constructs

    J. Market. Res.

    (1979)
  • CUM, 2002. Communaute Urbaine de Montreal, Accessed: 2002-10-10....
  • Dawes, R.M., 1972. Fundamentals of Attitude Measurement. Wiley, New...
  • De Vaus, D.A., 2002. Surveys in Social Research. Routledge,...
  • Deaton, A., 1997. The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy. Published for...
  • Dillman, D.A., 2000. Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method. Wiley, New...
  • Downs, R.M., Stea, D., 1977. Maps in Minds: Reflections on Cognitive Mapping. Harper & Row, New...
  • R.E. Dunlap et al.

    Of global concern: results of the health of the planet survey

    Environment

    (1993)
  • Faber, B.G., Watts, R., Hautaluoma, J.E., Knutson, J., Wallace, W.W., Wallace, L., 1996. A groupware-enabled GIS. In:...
  • Franklin, J., Keeler-Wolf, T., Thomas, K.A., Shaari, D.A., Stine, P.A., Michaelsen, J., Miller, J., 2001. Stratified...
  • Frigon, N.L., Mathews, D., 1997. Practical Guide to Experimental Design. Wiley, New...
  • Gerd, B., Wänke, M., 2002. Attitudes and Attitude Change. Psychology Press, Taylor & Francis, New...
  • Cited by (204)

    View all citing articles on Scopus

    Shivanand Balram is an MPhil graduate of the University of Cambridge, and a Lecturer in the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Guyana. Presently he is concluding doctoral studies at McGill University, and is also a researcher in the Spatial Analysis and Modeling Laboratory, Simon Fraser University, Canada. His nearly 12 years of academic, industry, and consulting experience have focused on geographic information systems and science, collaborative geovisualization, urban planning, environmental management, and physics. Shivanand has published in these areas and has developed the collaborative spatial Delphi methodology for collaborative decision-making, the embedded collaborative systems model for group learning, and the 18i interactions model for task management.

    Suzana Dragićević is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Canada. She has 16 years of academic, governmental, and industry experience focusing on geographic information systems and science, geodesy and land surveying, and university teaching and learning in multiple language settings. Her current research interests include spatial data analysis and modeling, fuzzy sets, cellular automata, and collaborative and web-based GIS. These methods have been applied to land use change processes, urban growth studies, and biodiversity conservation. She has published widely in her research areas.

    1

    Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6.

    2

    Tel.: +1-604-291-4621; fax: +1-604-291-5841.

    View full text