Validation of the “Restorativeness at Work Scale” (R@WS)

This research aims to build a scale, called Restorativeness at work scale (R@WS), to measure the perception of the restorative qualities of physical environments in work contexts, and to study its psychometric properties. Physical environments can affect the individual’s ability to direct attention by consuming them, but “restorative environments” can relieve mental fatigue. This work was carried out through different steps using a mixed methodology (qualitative and quantitative methods). First, 20 semi-structured interviews were carried out and administered to two types of workers: office and production. The questions aimed to investigate and deepen the relevant elements in the workplace for the construct of restorativeness. Second, we moved on to constructing the items, taking the PRS (PRS, Pasini et al., 2014) items as a reference and taking inspiration from the themes that emerged in the first step. 27 potential items were identified to investigate 4 dimensions (FA, B-A, COH, SCO); it has been chosen to exclude Compatibility. The first version of the scale with 27 items was administered to 28 workers. Each participant also underwent a cognitive interview aimed at identifying any critical issues. Based on the previous step’s results, we refined or excluded problematic items. A second version of the scale (17 items) was administered to 673 workers (61% female), and 238 of these (61% female) completed the scale a second time after about one month. Psychometrics proprieties (factor structure, internal consistency, test-retest reliability) were verified on this data.