Profiling perceptions of psychologically restorative university environments and cognitive resilience among public sector university students: A baseline descriptive item-level and subscale analysis

Abstract

Students at the university are constantly exposed to high levels of cognitive workload, assessment pressure, and the cognitive load needed to be able to perform in an academic setting, which can cause direct attention fatigue and academic distress. The quantitative descriptive study used a quantitative approach, and it was based on the Attention Restoration Theory (ART), which explores university students' perceptions of psychologically restorative university environments and their cognitive resilience. To obtain a sample of 300 undergraduate and graduate students across six academic departments of the University of Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan, multistage stratified sampling was used. Data were gathered using a 35-item semi-structured questionnaire made up of the Psychologically Restorative University Environment (PRE) scale (20 items, α=.860) and Cognitive Resilience (CR) scale (15 items, α=.899). Descriptive analysis showed that the overall rating for the campus environment was moderately restorative (M=3.535, SD=1.043); the functional study areas (M=3.797, SD=0.934) and spatial adequacy (M=3.760, SD=0.972) received the highest ratings, while quiet restorative refuges from daily campus crowds received lower ratings (M=3.333, SD=1.045). The students' cognitive resilience was in the moderate range (M=3.578), with behavioral persistence when studying difficult tasks being in the high range (M=3.903, SD=0.933) and generating alternative study strategies in the somewhat lower range (M=3.307, SD=1.142). The results highlight the need to consider both restorative environmental affordances (noise-buffered quiet spaces, biophilic green spaces) and coping support workshops to ensure students' learning processes continue.