Journal of Environmental Psychology (1986) 6, 205-231

EFFECTS OF THE SPATIAL DEFINITION

OF BEHAVIOR
SETTINGS ON CHILDREN'S
BEHAVIOR: A
QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL
FIELD STUDY
G A R Y T. M O O R E

Center for Architecture and Urban Planning Research, University of

Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
Abstract

Following from an ecological conception of environment-behavior relations, this

study investigated the effects of three levels of the spatial definition of behavior
settings--from well-defined to poorly defined--on children's social and cognitive
behavior. The study used a quasi-experimental post-test-only control group design
with multiple levels of treatment and proxy pretest measures. Systematic naturalistic
observation was conducted of children and staff at 14 child care centers matched in
three groups. The data were analysed by analysis of covariance controlling for
subject group differences between settings remaining after the matching. The degree
of spatial definition of behavior settings was found to be predictive of a range of
behaviors. Significantly more exploratory behavior, social interaction and cooperation occurred in spatially well defined behavior settings than in moderately or poorly
defined settings. Strong interactions were noted between teacher styles and spatial
definition in affecting children's behavior. The conclusions emphasize the finding
that the effects of physical environmental variables can only be understood when
studied in interaction with social environmental variables. The results are supportive
of a group x settings interactional theory of environment-behavior relations.
Introduction

Toward an interactional theory of environment-behavior relations

One important contribution of the first decade of environment-behavior research
(the 1970s) was the re-incorporation of the physical environment into certain areas
of psychological theory and research (Canter, 1977; Smith and Connolly, 1980;
Moore, 1981; Stokols, 1981). The behavioral significance of the ecological environment was recognized several decades earlier by psychologists such as K o f f k a (1935),
Tolman and Brunswik (1935), Brunswik (1943), and Lewin (1951). Lewin's (1951)
field theory of behavior as a function of the total situation, including ecological
variables external to the organism, has been especially influential. Influenced by
Lewin, Barker's theory of behavior settings and ecological psychology (Barker et
al, 1941; Barker, 1968) has been extended into child development by Gump (1975,
1978) and Schoggen and Barker (1977). Another theory charting the broader sociophysical milieu as it relates to psychological issues of development has been Bronfenbrenner's (1977, 1979) analyses of the ecology of human development.
One limitation of these theories is the restricted conceptualization of the
'environment'. Barker's concept of behavior settings, for example, focuses on the
measurement of social and behavioral phenomena (e.g. adaptive reactions to
conditions of understaffing and overstaffing of settings) and assigns only minor
emphasis to the physical features of settings. Similarly, Bronfenbrenner's analysis

0272-4944/86/030205 + 27 $03.00/0

1986AcademicPress Inc. (London) Ltd

206

G.T. Moore

of human development focuses on the social-structural properties of settings with

special emphasis on social networks (e.g. interpersonal linkages within and across
settings), again placing less emphasis on the role of the physical environment in the
ecology of human development. A few followers of Barker have begun to look at
the connections between the architectural environment and conditions of over and
understaffing of settings (e.g. Wicker and Kirmeyer, 1976, Bechtel, 1977) but these
have not articulated the operative physical environmental construct nor have they
been applied to developmental issues.
Stokols (1981; Stokols and Shumaker, 1981) has broken with these traditions,
and has begun to incorporate the physical component on equal footing with the
social context in the analysis of behavior. He has developed an interactional view
that highlights the active role of individuals and groups in creating and modifying
their environments and joins the analysis of persons, social units, and the physical
milieu. In contrast to other approaches, Stokols' analysis focuses on the concept of
place (the geographical and architectural context of behavior), on bilateral transactions between people and places, and on social units and grouIy-environment
linkages. Likewise, Canter (1977) has discussed the poignancy of the interrelations between people and places and the need to build models of the ways in which the physical
components and the social components of spaces combine to influence behavior.
Similar to Stokols' analysis and to Smith and Connolly's work, the present study
explicitly questions the interactions between the social context, the architectural
environment and human behavior. While putting more emphasis on the physical
setting than has Barker, the present analysis makes use of his concept of the behavior
setting and asks about the relation between the spatial definition of behavior settings
and subsequent behavior. While also putting more emphasis on the physical environment than does Bronfenbrenner and more explicit attention than does Canter, the
present analysis attempts to extend their general views of the interdependence of the
physical, social and personal components of settings, in particular by articulating
relevant dimensions of the physical environment for systematic study and by looking
at linkages between the architectural-geographic environment and the social system
as they independently and jointly influence behavior. This notion comes from a view
of environment-behavior studies as necessarily incorporating the analysis of the
multiple and mutual interactions among places, the characteristics of people, and
individual and group behavior (Moore, 1979; Moore et al., 1985). Finally, methodologically, while not being able to meet the true experimental standards set by Smith
and Connolly (1980), the study does try to meet Wohlwill's (1980) call for quasiexperimental designs in ~eal-world settings, for the measurement of responses to
specified physical environmental conditions, and for the sampling of environments
across a wide range of settings.

Research on behavior settings in children's environments

Barker's (1968) notion of behavior settings, and his behavior setting theory, focuses
more on the social and behavioral phenomena of settings than on their physical
(geographical or architectural) features. Considering the context of child care
centers, much of a child's time is spent in informal, unstructured learning situations,
what Barker would call behavior settings, with several children working on different
projects at once, some with a teacher, some on their own or in small groups. The

Spatial Definition of Behavior Settings

2O7

question is, how does the spatial character and configuration of activity areas or
behavior settings influence these activities, if at all?
Only a few studies have looked at activity settings in child care environments.
Rosenthal (1974) studied the behaviors of a heterogeneous population of preschoolers balanced in terms of gender, race, and age during 37 child care sessions.
Settings differed significantly in their attractive power as measured by the percentage
of children involved in them, as well as their holding power as measured by the
length of involvement. Settings for art, block play and novel ventures were the most
attractive settings, while role playing settings had the greatest holding power.
Somewhat similar findings were reported by Shure (1963), who found that the most
popular areas were block play and art, with the block play area having the greatest
holding power, although there were significant gender differences. No theoretical
discussion was offered in either study to account for the differences in attractiveness
or holding power of different settings. We don't know, for instance, whether the
behaviors have anything to do with the characteristics of the physical environment,
the materials provided, staff characteristics, or some combination.
On the other hand, it is known that children playing outdoors tend to congregate
in groups of less than five children with a mean of just under two children in a
setting (Aiello et al., 1974). Similarly, experts recommend that the best size for an
indoor preschool play group is two to four children (Millar, 1968). A large sample
national study in the U.S.A. indicated that the quality of child care programs as
measured by the Preschool Inventory and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test is
related to the size of the group, with small groups working best (Abt Associates,
1979).
At a more specific level, the now widely cited work of Smith and Connolly (e.g.
Smith, 1978; Smith and Connolly, 1980) on the ecology of preschool environments
in England has begun to shed considerable empirical light on child-environment
linkages in early childhood indoor environments. Using experimental designs and
naturalistic observation techniques, they have found, among other things, that more
fantasy play is observed in smaller play groups though aggressive behavior does not
vary with group size. Running, chasing and vigorous activities occur more frequently
in larger spaces (those, for instance, around 6-75 m 2, or 75 ft 2 per child) while
more physical contacts happen between children in smaller preschool spaces (2.2 m 2
or about 25 ft 2 per child), though again aggressive behavior was not found to vary
with absolute space size. When more rather than less play equipment is available,
children tend to play in smaller subgroups including playing alone some of the time;
also with more equipment available, there is less sharing of equipment and less
aggressive behavior and overall a less stressful situation for the children. Other
findings are reported in Smith and Connolly's book, comparing structured activities
to free-play conditions, and variations in the ratio of children to staff members, but
for the most part these latter studies were conducted without explicit attention to
the possible role of physical environmental variables.

The idea of spatially well-defined behavior settings

Our earlier applied work developing a pattern language for child care centers (Moore
et al., 1979) argued that other facets of the spatial character of early childhood
environments may have profound--though yet largely unmeasured--impacts on
children's behavior. In particular, we suggested that architecturally well-defined

208

G . T . Moore

behavior settings (i.e. those with clear boundaries from circulation space and from
other behavior settings, and with at least partial acoustic and visual separation)
should decrease classroom interruptions and contribute to longer attention spans
and greater involvement with developmentally appropriate activities (Moore et al.,
1979, Pattern 908).
Well-defined behavior settings are areas limited to one activity, but not completely
cordoned off from other activities. They are sized to accommodate two to five
children plus one teacher (typically 5 to 10 m 2 or 50 to 100 ft2), and typically
include storage, surface area, equipment plug-ins and display for the activity. In
the better child care centers, one behavior setting is provided for each major
developmental activity.
The notion of spatially well defined settings implies that the setting has a high
degree of spatial differentiation from other settings and therefore from other activities. Thus, for example, spatially well-defined settings may be characterized by any
or all of the following:
(1) partially surrounding walls or partitions;
(2) bookcases, storage cabinets, or shelves used as partial dividers and able to be
moved and changed as staff and children wish in order to accommodate varied
group sizes;
(3) changes in levels, either the floor or the ceiling;
(4) changes in floor coverings or textures;
(5) hangings and placement of overhead lighting to define spaces; and
(6) implied boundaries suggested by the placement of columns, posts, or other
strong visual elements, or the visual completion of space by the implied visual
connection between wall stub ends [i.e. the Gestalt principle of pragnanz or, more
specifically, the law of perceived closure of almost closed figures (Koffka, 1935)].
Spatially well-defined settings are contrasted with poorly defined behavior settings, i.e. areas where the actual or implied spatial definition is low, where the area
is too large or too small for the group size, and/or where the resources and work
surfaces are not readily available for the particular activity. Diagrams showing the
evolution of spatially well-defined behavior settings are shown in Figs 1-4.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the degree of spatial
definition of behavior settings on a number of cognitive and social behaviors in
child care centers.
Hypotheses: the two sets of hypotheses behind this study were as follows:
H 1 There will be more indicators of cognitive and social development (e.g.
engagement, child-imitation of behavior, exploration, social interaction and cooperation) in child care centers with architecturally well defined behavior settings
than in those with less well-defined behavior settings.
H2 As neither the social nor the physical environment acts independently of the
other, there will be complex group-place interactions, specifically interactions
between the backgrounds of the children, the teaching philosophy and style of the
teachers, and the character of the physical environment will affect various cognitive
and social behaviors.

Spatial Definition of Behavior Settings

( a ) ~Smoll groups work best

209

(b)
I

~"~t

~:::~

..

I n , definition

~ . ~ = ~ / "

t "~.~[~,., '. ~

without full
room walls

~ Partitions

[' ~ ' ~'~ " ~ ' i

~---'ff'~'----Definition
inside the
area

Storage
Enclosed spaces
Hangings
Ceiling height
Changes
Circulation

FIGURE I. Diagrams showing the evolution of spatially well-defined behavior settings for child care
centers: (a) The U.S. National Day Care Study finding that small groups work best, translated into (b)
the beginning definition of activity pockets or behavior settings inside the total space available. (Illustrations in Figs I-4 by Tim McGinty from Recommendations for Child Care Centers by G. T. Moore, C. G.
Lane, A. H. Hill, U. Cohen and T. McGinty, 1979, Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
Center for Architecture and Urban Planning Research. Illustrations copyright 1979 by Tim McGinty,
reprinted by permission.)

(b

(a) In any activity pocket

Reading,
picture,
books

"~3-4 small
activity
spaces

Storage of
manipulative

toys
Soft
places

m a t e r i ~

Cross visibility

Easilly
/~/"NJ
visibile . ~ E ~ ,.1
by an
~'~.1_a

Recorders

i.J

etc.

adult

X-Sense of
enclosure
2-5
children

-J

I ~ , , ~t

"Y'~

Relation to
other
activities,
views, etc.

FIGURE 2. Qualities of well-defined behavior settings. (a) The provision of a sense of enclosure and of
resources in the behavior setting, and (b) the clustering of three or four behavior settings in proximity to
each other.

Method

The commitment to studying naturally occuring behaviors in the everyday physical

environment leads to consideration of a number of methodological issues and
problems (Proshansky, 1972; Smith and Connolly, 1980; Wohlwill, 1980; Moore
1981). Chief among them is the trade-off between ecological validity and causal
inference. Our ultimate interest is to be able to make causal statements 'about the
effects of features of everyday socio-physical environments on behavior, and
multilateral statements about interactions among the physical, interpersonal and

210

G. T. Moore
(a)

(b)
-)

*Light

:
,~

* Lofts and
level changes

{
Level

changes

(c)

(d)

* Defined but
non-interfering
circulation
Defined
space

View

....

*Implied boundries
made by changes in
materials

Low
movable
ca binets

5'or 4'
FIGURE 3. Ways to spatially define behavior settings (law of pragnanz applied to building design),
including level changes, skylights and defining areas by pools of light, lofts and child-only crawl space
underneath, separation of circulation from activity settings by storage units or other vertical elements,
and implied boundaries suggested by changes in materials or textures.

cultural aspects of environments. While much of the work in the environmentbehavior field has been exploratory~lescriptive in nature or has been survey research
with little intervention and little control (see, for example, the studies reviewed in
Zeisel, 1981), only a few studies have been able to develop experimental procedures
while maintaining the relative integrity of settings and events (e.g. Carp, 1966; Trites
et al., 1970; Smith and Connolly, 1980). Though the field should move toward
multilateral and multivariate causal explanations, adoption of a strict causal model
does not seem appropriate at this time. An ecological model where the total ensemble
of social and physical variables are related holistically seems more appropriate-careful observation and systematic description must preceed explanation (Proshansky, 1972; Wapner et al., 1973; Bronfenbrenner, 1977; Wohlwill, 1980).
The problem of making causal inferences in field settings has been dealt with at
length in a series of handbook chapters and books by Campbell and his colleagues

Spatial Definition of Behavior Settings

211

:~

FIGURE4. An example of a spatially well-defined behavior setting, this one to double-function as a quiet
nook for reading/listening, a breakaway and retreat area, and occasionally an informal napping area
(Pattern 1016 from Recommendationsfor Child Care Centers, 1979).

OA

O8

OA

Xz

O8

OA

X~

O8

FIGURE5. Diagram of the quasi-experimentalpost-test-only control group design with multiple levels of
treatment and proxy pretest measures, using the nomenclature of Cook and Campbell (1979).
(Campbell, 1957; Campbell and Stanley, 1966; C o o k and" Campbell, 1976, 1979).
They have systematically explicated the threats to valid causal inference when the
major features of laboratory-centered experimental research are not present (e.g.
when randomization, physical isolation of respondents, short duration of the
experimental treatment and strict control over all extraneous independent variables
cannot be achieved). In research concerning everyday field settings, it is the
researcher's task to systematically rule out as m a n y alternative explanations limiting
valid causal inference as possible. The Campbell approach and quasi-experimental
research designs form the methodological basis for the current study, and the threats
to internal and external validity form the basis for caution in interpreting the
findings.
Research design and rationale
It would have been ideal to redesign existing child care centers in the directions
suggested by the hypotheses, to use other centers as controls, and to randomly
assign children to conditions, thus permitting a true experimental design. Practical
limitations working in naturalistic field settings did not make this feasible. Thus, a
number of existing centers were located that were characterized by the physical

212

G.T. Moore

O
.
,,,._-~

~,

.
,_,_.--,

%.~.,,~,."~:,

,.

._--_.eJ~ L t "~ , o , above

o

.,

rr

~o ~

l~IE____I~I~

""

~-;-"(I

~.~...

~.~

,/ / ' ~ \ ~
~.~
: ~

,::.'-.'." ;",L ./~i:l-" . ~

If-H

":. " . %"~

FIGURE 6. Example of a child care center with spatial well-defined behavior settings. Note the two
overhead lofts, the well-defined kitchen accessible to children underneath the loft, the stairways from the
lofts providing partial separation between behavior settings, and the use o f bookcases and different
carpet textures to shield and differentiate 'activity pockets' or behavior settings.

i :.--'."i.

s t ~

'

Up
N

oowo /-H ]
,r [[
L
I

I0

ft

FIGURE 7. Example o f a child care center with partially defined (transitional) behavior settings. Note the
lack of overhead differentiation or any strong vertical elements, but also note the clustering o f similar
types of furniture together and the use of carpets and some low furniture to partially differentiate behavior
settings.

patterns hypothesized to have impacts on children's behavior, and other centers that
did not have the patterns.
Inasmuch as it was impossible to assign subjects randomly to conditions, subject
groups were matched and proxy pretest data were collected to aid in matching
groups, to check on the equivalency o f groups, and to use as covariates to remove
remaining initial group differences in subsequent data analyses. To determine the

Spatial Definition of Behavior Settings

\Ill

office
-~--'-~

~
13

IlLunge~

213

~
o

tcL_/I

1o

~.......

'~

]-(-:::ill: i!J

z--'I .........

L-I

s' Ir
I

>N

I
0

I
I0

fi

FIGURE 8. Example of a child center with poorly defined behavior settings. Looking at the three child
care rooms on opposite ends of the building, note the wide open spaces and the lack of any dividers,
overhead elements, book cases, or other furniture used to differentiate behavior settings.

relative effects of different treatment levels, three levels of the independent environmental construct (definition of behavior setting) were selected. Thus, following the
nomenclature of Cook and Campbell, the research design would be referred to as a
combination of two quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group designs, the
post-test-only design with multiple levels of treatment and the untreated control
group design with proxy pretest measures (Cook and Campbell, 1979, pp. 98-99,
112-115) and would be depicted diagrammatically as shown in Fig. 5, where X
stands for the treatments in three ordinal levels from poorly defined to well defined
spatial settings, O stands for proxy pretests and post-treatment observations, where
the subscripts A and B refer to different measures, and where the dotted lines refer
to non-equivalent groups, intact rather than randomly assigned.

Settings
The settings were 14 child care centers in Milwaukee County selected to represent a
minimum of two sets of centers for each of the three levels of the spatial definition
of behavior settings: well-defined, moderately defined (transitional) and poorly
defined (see Figs 6-8). The degree of spatial definition was measured in terms of ten
variables, including the degree to enclosure, degree of visual separation from other
settings, appropriate size, degree of separation from circulation, and appropriateness
of the amount of storage, work surfaces, and display space to the activity in the
setting. Independent verification was achieved using judges' ratings on the ten-item
Early Childhood Physical Environment Scale.
The centers were selected to be similar and were matched as well as possible in
terms of size, socio-economic status of the children, general educational philosophy,

214

G . T . Moore

and four specific dimensions of teacher style. Thus for example, three centers similar
in size, stated educational philosophy, and observed teacher styles were identified
within a five-block radius in a lower-middle income mixed ethnic area that had,
respectively, well-defined, partially defined and poorly defined behavior settings. A
large middle-income center was also chosen that had a varied clientel
but had well defined, transitional, and poorly defined settings in different rooms.
The effectiveness of this matching strategy was assessed by a Center Profile, a
Teacher Style Rating Scale, and a Dimensions of Education Rating Scale (described
below). No significant differences were found between centers, children or teachers
on 23 of the 28 measures (82.14%). Remaining differences (center size, open versus
traditional philosophy, and socio-economic status) were used as proxy pretest or
control variables in subsequent analyses of covariance thus removing most of the
initial group differences and increasing the interpretability of the quasi-experiment
(Cook and Campbell, 1974, p. 114).

Subjects
The subjects were selected on the basis of random space and time sampling. They
ranged from 2.5 to 6 years of age. Each center was mapped and divided into a grid
of cells. The days when each center were observed was determined randomly, the
time of day and order of observing different rooms and spaces were determined
randomly, and the time and order of observing particular cells were determined
randomly. Every child starting in or entering a cell during an observational period
was observed. All cells were observed equally over equal periods of time. Cases were
the observational cells. A total number (N) of 1,061 cases were observed.
Physical environmental variables
To ensure construct validity for the physical environmental variables, a detailed
operational definition and rating scale were prepared for each level of spatial definition. The requirement that these scales focus on specific physical environmental
variables meant that the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale of Harms and
Clifford (1980) and our own Facility Inventories used in an earlier study of child
care centers (Cohen et aL, 1978) were not appropriate. Inspection of the Harms and
Clifford scale indicated that it deals more with the social than the physical environment, and in fact makes no distinctions between different types of physical settings.
Our own earlier inventories were too general for the present study. The new pair of
scales developed for this study are called the Early Childhood Physical Environment
Scales. Using these scales, the validity of the selection of settings was tested by
having a panel of three judges not familiar with the hypotheses independently rate
each of the settings on a series of ten five-point items. The results of this pilot test
indicated that the behavior settings were significantly different from each other in
terms of spatial definition and always in line with the characterization given them
by the principal investigator (paired sample t-tests ranging from 1-97 to 4.15, df =
59 to 119, P-values ranging from <0.05 to <0.001).
Subject group variables
As the dependent behavioral consequences measured in this study were based on an
ongoing 'treatment' (the ongoing program and design of each center), proxy 'pre'test

Spatial Definition of Behavior Settings

215

measures were collected on variables correlated with post-test scores.* Previous

studies of child care setting have found several variables to be highly correlated with
observational measures of children's behavior: children's socio-economic status
(Reiss and Dyhdalo, 1975); age and gender of the children (Wright, 1975); achievement levels on various perceptual-cognitive tests, including on the Stanford-Binet
Intelligence Scale and Vocabulary, Torrance Creativity, California Achievement,
Bender-Gestalt, and H o o p e r Visual Organization tests (Bell et al., 1974; Reiss and
Dyhdalo, 1975; Wright, 1975); various measures of teacher style and philosophy of
teaching, including the Dimensions of Schooling Questionnaire, Teacher Practices
Observation Form, Teacher Belief Rating Scale, and Environmental Standards
Profile (Prescott et al., 1972; Traub et al., 1972; Verma and Peters, 1975; Fowler,
1980); and size of center (Prescott et al., 1972). The variables measured on these
tests and scales have been found to be potential pre-existing sample biases that
could affect our dependent measures. As randomization was impossible in the present
study, these variables were selected as proxy pretest measures, both to test for equivalence of non-equivalence of samples, and to use as covariates in subsequent analyses.
As the preschool centers used in the present study did not have perceptualcognitive test scores for the children, and as the size of the sample and the age of the
children made this very difficult to collect, achievement test scores were not used.
But as center size is inversely related to the quality of child care (Prescott et al.,
1972), centers were selected to be similar in number of children enrolled (most were
medium sized centers between 25 and 75 children, M = 61-86, S.D. = 38-76), and
data on number of children enrolled ('size') was recorded,
Ages in our sample ranged from 2.5 to just over 6 years of age (M = 4.3). O f the
children, exactly 50% were boys and 50% girls; 85% were white, 6% black, 4%
Hispanic and 5% of other ethnic groups. As only group data was available (access
was limited to individual private data), socio-economic status was computed as an
index based on average family income, ethnicity, and family education on a range
from 0 to 7 ( M = 4.04, S.D. = 2-69).
Finally, to measure any initial group differences in philosophy of education or
style of teaching, two scales were developed. Some of the existing scales are
cumbersome and time-consuming to administer (e.g. the Traub et al., 1972,
Dimensions of Schooling Questionnaire contains 28 items each with five ~lternatives
that must be ranked without ties and requires an elaborate scoring procedure),
while others are very informal and are not susceptible to quantitative analysis (e.g.
the interview procedures used by Prescott et al., 1972).
Two new scales were developed that incorporated portions of the work of Traub
et al. and Prescott et al. The Traub et al. (1972) Dimensions of Schooling (DISC)
questionnaire used extensively in Canada measures the openness versus closedness
of general educational philosophy (not the physical space) of preschools. It is

* This strategy is recommended by Cook and Campbell (1979, pp. 112-115) for the 'untreated control
group design with proxy pretest measures'. As this particular quasi-experimentalresearch design has not,
to the best of my knowledge, been used previously in the environment-behavior literature, a brief
description may help. From Cook and Campbell: 'Different pretest measures are also needed when
evaluating the consequences of an ongoing practice, since in this case it may not be possible to collect
any measures other than those found in the archives or those where changes are not likely to be affected
by the treatment (e.g., stable characteristicslike age, sex, or socioeconomicstatus). Such variables function
in the design and analysis as proxies for the pretest' (p. 113).

216

G . T . Moore

comprised of ten subdimensions of openness-closedness with a total of 28 items.

To simplify administration and scoring, two items were selected from each of the
ten subdimensions and were transfered into Likert-type items. Thus, for example,
the subdimension of 'student control' with items about rule-making and ruleenforcement was transformed into items about children being free to talk and move
about (+ loading on openness) and about the rules of the room being set for the
convenience of the teachers ( - loading on openness). The completed scale of general
educational philosophy, comprised of 20 five-point items, is called the Early
Education Dimensions of Education Rating Scale.
The second scale was based on the Prescott et al. (1972) Day Care Environmental
Inventory. A factor analysis of 52 variables about patterns of teacher behavior
(Prescott et al., 1972) indicated four bipolar dimensions of preschool teacher style:
(1) encouragement versus restriction of the children; (2) conformity versus
nonconformity to routine; (3) group versus individual teaching; and (4) fostering
independence versus dependence. A Likert-type scale was developed for each of
these dimensions by using the variables having the greatest positive and negative
factor loadings (selected from Tables 1 to 4 of Prescott et al., 1972), and transforming
each variable into a Likert-type item. Thus, for example, the scale for 'encouragement-restriction' was based on Likert-type statements about encouraging children
to pursue their own interests (factor loading +0.89) and ensuring that children
know the correct rules of social living (-0-31). Other scales were likewise developed
for 'conformity-nonconformity', 'group-individual teaching,' and 'independencydependency'. The completed scale of teacher styles, comprised of 16 five-point items,
is called the Early Childhood Teacher Style Rating Scale.
Both sets of scales were validated by comparisons between the directors' and
teachers' self-ratings at the largest center. Analysis with paired sample t-tests did
not indicate any significant differences between self ratings and director's ratings on
five of the six dimensions (t-values ranging from 0.25 to 1.43, df = 15, P > 0-10,
not significant, for all t-values). Though the t-values were moderately low, this
analysis suggests that the scales are valid indicators of the teachers' philosophies of
education and practical styles of working with children.
Dependent behavioral variables
An observational instrument was developed for the operationalized dependent
variables suggested by the hypotheses (task versus transition time, degree of
engagement, child-initiated versus staff-directed activity, exploratory behavior, type
of social interaction, cooperative versus competitive behavior, teacher involvement,
and teacher-teacher interactions). The research literature was" scoured for the most
appropriate and reliable measures, with an eye to using existing measures, adapting
them or, as a last resort, developing a new instrument.
Many observational schedules have been used in the literature, but none was
found that covered the needed range of behaviors. For example, schedules have
been developed for observing and recording attention span in classroom settings
(Kupietz and Richardson, 1978), active engagement versus disordered behavior
(Doke, 1975), teacher-child interactions (Passman and Weisberg, 1975; Jennings et
al., 1979), and other single behaviors. Many other studies in the literature, because
they use experimental designs, measure these behaviors through predetermined
games or puzzles (e.g. Vlietstra, 1978), a procedure not applicable to a naturalistic

Spatial Definition of Behavior Settings

217

field study such as the present one. The closest observational schedules to that
needed for the present study have been reported in the environment-behavior
literature by Prescott et al. (1972), Harms and Clifford (1980), Perkins (1980), and
Smith and Connolly (1980).
Based on review of the above, an Environment/Behavior Observation Schedule
for Early Childhood Environments appropriate for the present study was constructed. The main data recording sheet is comprised of three types of observations:
(1) setting, (2) individuals and (3) observed behaviors.
The major portion of the observation schedule is given over to space for
recording observed behaviors in seven categories: (a) general type of behavior
(engagement, transitional, functional, random and withdrawn); (b) initiation of
behavior (spontaneous free, individual directed and group-directed); (c) quality of
exploratory behavior (immersed, somewhat involved, not involved); (d) type of social
interaction (cooperation, competition, aggression, affection); (e) degree of social
interaction (reciprocated, acknowledged, not acknowledged, no social interaction); (f) type of teacher involvement (co-action, encouragement, control, information, observation, presence but no involvement, no teacher present); and (g)
type of teacher-teacher interaction (group, colleague, observation, more than one
teacher but no interaction, one or no teacher present). Ordinal and interval scales
were developed within categories (e.g. distracted, attending and immersed under
the category of engagement; parallel, associative and cooperative under cooperation).
Each of the categories and scales was based on the existing research literature for
that behavior type. For example, Parten's (Parten, 1932; Parten and Newhall, 1943)
conceptualization of the stages of social participation of preschool children has
become one of the classics of child psychology. She introduced six categories of
social participation in play behavior: unoccupied behavior, solitary play, onlooker
behavior, parallel play, associative play, and cooperative play. This category system
has been used in many studies and has been simplified and re-examined (e.g. Smith,
1978). In the present case, Parten's six categories have been divided into two sections
of the Observation Schedule. The two behaviors that are not strictly play behaviors
(unoccupied and onlooker) were recorded under 'general type of behavior', while
the four types of social play (solitary, parallel, associative and cooperative) were
recorded under 'type of social interaction--degree of cooperation'.
While space does not permit giving all the operational definitions here, a sample
of the most important observational categories used for later analyses can be summarized:
Engagement

Child is visually and/or physically involved with a point of focus. Point of focus
may be another person, object or activity. Behaviors include looking at, listening to,
participating in a prescribed or spontaneously initiated activity with, and/or touching
or manipulating the point of focus.
Random behavior
Behavior that is nondirected and shifts rapidly from one setting or object to another.
Includes behavior that is hyperactive, impulsive, fast moving, and ineffective, and
actions that are incomplete.

218

G . T . Moore

Withdrawn
Behavior that is not focused on any activity. Characteristic behaviors include
vacant staring, staying close to adults without visually or physically exploring the
environment, and indications of fearfulness such as crying, hiding, thumb-sucking,
auto-manipulation, and trembling.

Initiation of behavior--child-initiated.vs, staff-directed behavior

The person or persons who initiated, suggested, or directed the behavior observed
based on the sequence of behaviors in a setting, e.g. a staff member initiating a sequence of behaviors by offering 'options' or 'choices', versus the child choosing from
among activities available without anyone having suggested which activities to do.

Exploration
Behavior that is directed toward investigating, examining, studying, or searching for
an object, activity, person, setting or other points of focus, including inspection,
asking questions, manipulation and producing effects, etc.
Based on these and similar considerations, a detailed set of operational definitions
and coding b o o k were prepared for training observers, for checking reliablility, and
for use in the observation sessions.* For ease of recording, the schedule was reduced
to one page, as shown in Fig. 9.
After three training sessions, interobserver agreement was significantly high (percentage of exact agreement = 85.71, P <0.001; kappa k = 0-86, P <0.001).

Procedure
The study was conducted in three phases. First, centers were located and contacted,
permission forms for the teachers and parents of children were completed, and
demographic profiles were filled out by the center director and parents. Second,
each teacher in the 14 selected centers was asked to fill out the Teacher Style Rating
Scale and the Dimensions of Education Rating Scale. Third, the children's and
staff's behaviors were observed in each of the settings on a r a n d o m space and time
sampling basis.
The observer stationed herself in a position in each r o o m that would provide
views of all portions of the room, but would not interfere with the children's
behavior (e.g. the corner of a large loft, a chair behind a bookcase, in a corner of
the room). This was done with sufficient time before the beginning of observation to
allow the children to adapt to the new person in the room. A mini-tape-recorder
with unobtrusive ear-plug, clipboard with observation forms, and pencils were all
the equipment needed by each observer. There were no obvious signs of disruption
or complaints caused by our observations.
Observations were conducted by two trained observers over a period of a month.
They were done for 20 min sessions, then a 5 min break, and then additional sessions
of 20 min each for a 2.5 hour observational period. Each observation lasted for 10 s
(timed by beeps on the tape-recorder) with 1 min and 50 s for recording and a deep
breath. At each time beep of the recorder, the observer moved her attention to the
next randomly selected observation cell.
* The behavior mapping instrument, called the Environment/Behavior Observation Schedule for Early
Childhood Environments, together with operational definitions and coding book and the other scales
used in this study are available from the author.

ENVIRONMENT/BEHAVIOROBSERVATIONSCHEDULEFOREARLYCHILDHOODENVIRONMENTS
Observer_ _

Date_ _

ENVIRONMENTALSETTING
The Locationof the ObservedBehavior

Center

[]

[]

Observational Cell

Genders

Ages

Ethnicity

SECTION2: CHILD-INITIATEDVSSTAFF-DIRECTEDBEHAVIOR
Initiated

[]

[]

Adults

[]

Girls

[]

Boys

[]

2 to 3

[]

3to4

[]

4 to5

[]

5to6

[]

6 and over

[]

White

[]

Black

[]

Hispanic

[-7

Other

[]

Exploration

[]

Attending
Transitional

[]

[]

[]

Interaction

[]

EmptyCell

[]

[]

[]
[]

Not Acknowledged

[]
[]

SECTIONS: COOPERATIONC
, OMPETETIONA
, GGRESSION,AFFECTION
Cooperation

[]

CooperativeActivity [ ]
Associative Activity [ ]

Parallel Activity
[]

AbsoluteGains

[]
[]

Relative Gains

[]
[]

[]

ThreatenedAttack

[]

[]

Verbal Abuse

[]

Intimate Physical

[]

[]
[]

Primarily Engaged

[]

Only Functional

[]

Affection

[]

[]

[]

Not Applicable[ ]

Involvement

[]

[]

Vacant Staring
[]
Intermlttant Focusing [ ]
Passive Observation

[]

Unclear

[]

Friendly Physical

[]

Verbal

[]

Unclear

[]

SECTION6: TYPEOFTEACHERINVOLVEMENT

No SustainedActivity [ ]

Not Applicable[ ]

Co-Action

[]

Encouragement

[]

Control

[]

Information

[]

Observation

[]

No Involvement

[]

Unclear

[]

SECTION7: TYPEOFSTAFF-STAFFINTERACTION
Interaction

[]

The School of The

Archilccture .U0iversityof
& Ur4b~n Wisconsin.
Planning Milwaukee

(~ntc:r Ex Architecture & L ~ n t~nning Rc"scatt~

Reciprocated
Acknowledged

Not Applicable[] Unclear

Spontaneous Interest [ ]

Withdrawn

[]
[]

[]

Distracted

Directed Interest

[]

PhysicalAttack

Partially Functional [ ]
Random

Immersed

SECTION4: SOCIALINTERACTION

Aggression

Only Transitional

Primarily Engaged

[]

Not Applicable[] Unclear

Partially Transitional[ ]
Functional

[]

Rivalry

SECTIONi: GENERALTYPEOFBEHAVIOR
I .... sed

Group Directed
Unclear

SomewhatInvolved

OBSERVEDBEHAVIORS
ObservableBehaviorsCharact
as a Wholeor for Most of the ObservationSegment
[]

[]

SECTION3: EXPLORATION

Children

Competition

Engag.... t

SpontaneousFree

Individual Directed [ ]

[]

INDIVIDUALSINVOLVED
The Numberand Characteristics of Children and
Adults Involved

[]

Seq # - -

OBSERVEDBEHAVIORS{continued)

Room/Area

Group Size

Time_ _

Not Applicable[ ]

Group

[]

Colleague

[]

Peer Observation

[]

NO Interaction

[]

Unclear

[]

FIOURE 9. The Environment-Behavior Observation Schedule (behavior map) for Early Childhood
Environments. Complete instructions for its use are available from the author.

220

G . T . Moore

Data analysis
The results of interactions between physical environmental variables (the spatial
definition of behaviour settings), subject group variables (the various measures of
teacher style and philosophy o f teaching), and resultant dependent behavioral
variables (social and cognitive b e h a v i o r s ) w e r e analysed using multivariate
parametric and non-parametric statistics available in the SPSS package (Nie et al.,
1981). Included were nominal and ordinal data analysed by three-way Z2 tests
controlling for subject and environmental variables and Kruskal-Wallis one-way
analysis of variance with ranks.
The majority of the data was interval in level and was analysed using three-way
factorial analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) on the adjusted means on the dependent
variables with two covariates, for example, settings x teacher styles x dimensions
of education, with socio-economic status and center size as covariates *. This analysis
was deemed most appropriate for the data collected for a number of reasons, among
them that the physical environmental variables (the spatial definition of behavior
settings) and the subject group variables (the scales of teacher style and o f open
versus traditional philosophy of education) were independent of each other, that the
factorial analysis allows the important and too-often neglected analysis of interaction
effects, that the covariates though gathered concomitantly with the dependent
measures served as appropriate proxies for pretest variables (Cook and Campbell,
1979), that the proxy pretest covariates are stable characteristics and therefore not
likely to be affected by the treatment, and that the analysis of covariance allows the
analysis of F-scores based on adjusted means, SS, MS and df, or, said differently,
the analysis of covariance is appropriate for eliminating any initial group differences
remaining after the matching of centers and subject groups. Power was increased
by using multiple covariates which were also un-correlated with each other. The
covariates and dependent variables were assumed to be colinear, though this was not
tested directly.
The A N C O V A procedures are not without difficulty and potential sources of
bias, however, when used with intact groups and the non-equivalent control group
design. This has been discussed in detail by Reichardt (1979). Despite the matching,
multiple treatment levels, and analysis of covariance of some of the expectedly
most important remaining initial group differences, the presence of other selection
differences between the groups is inevitable. Unfortunately, various forms of
experimental control, randomization and design elaboration are not possible in
many field settings, leading to a balancing act between internal and external validity.
A degree of uncertainty always remains in quasi-experimental non-equivalent control
group studies, and despite relatively powerful quantitative analysis of the data, the
results and conclusions below must be rendered as tentative and suggestive of causal
connections, not as conclusively demonstrative.
Results

The findings are presented in terms of four subsets o f hypotheses, those pertaining
* All reported Fs and df in the analyses of covariance pertain to adjusted means on the dependent
variables due to the use of the covariates within the statistical analyses. Though collection occurred
concomitantlywith that of the dependent variables, the proxy pretest variables used as covariates meet
the assumption that scores on the covariate not be influenced by the treatment variables as they are
stable characteristicsof the subjects and centers.

Spatial Definition of Behavior Settings

221

to (a) style of behavior and degree of engagement, (b) child-initiated and exploratory
behavior, (c) group sizes and cooperative behavior, and (d) teacher involvement.
Each will be examined in turn.
But first, a binomial test of proportions indicated that child care centers with well
defined behavior settings have significantly more such settings (sometimes referred
to as 'activity pockets') than centers with moderately and poorly defined areas (Zvalues ranging from 1.73 to 2.04, P-values ranging from < 0-05 to < 0-02). That is,
not only do some centers tend to have better defined behavior settings, but they also
tend to have more of them. In many cases this is because the same overall square
footage is subdivided into smaller, and therefore better defined 'pockets'. It remains
to be seen whether this has any impact on behavior.

Style of behavior and degree of engagement

Contrary to expectation, the incidence of engaged versus random and withdrawn
behaviors did not differ between different types of behavior settings (~(2 = 2.91,
df = 2, P > 0.20, not significant; see Table 1). A three-way Z2 analysis was
TABLE 1

General categories of observed behavior in spacially well-defined, partially

defined and poorly defined behavior settings

Engaged behavior

Well-defined

Partially
defined

Poorly
defined

38-9
3-3

25.0
3.1

26-2
3.5

Note. Transitionaland functionalbehaviorsare omittedfromthis tableas theydo

not figure in the hypothesisunder analysis, and proportions have been adjusted
accordinglyto total 100%.
Z2 = 2.91, df = 2, P > 0.20, not significant.

performed to see if, in the absence of main effects, there might be any interaction
effects. The results indicated a small but statistically significant relationship. For
centers with teachers scoring high on the scale of open educational philosophy,
there was a significant interaction between the definition of the behaviour setting
and the philosophy of education jointly affecting engaged styles of behavior (~(z =
4-68, df = 1, P < 0.05). The physical environment and teaclfing philosophy appear
to reinforce each other in affecting engaged versus non-engaged behavior only at
the 'highest' levels of both spatial definition and open educational philosophy.
Inspection of the three-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) in Table 2 indicates
that, where it does occur, the degree of engagement is more intense depending on
the spatial definition of the behavior setting (F = 6-51, df = 2, 654, P < 0.01) and the
overall size o f the center (F = 20.40, df = 1,654, P < 0-001). A follow-up multiple
classification analysis (Nie et al., 1981) and an ordinal Kruskal-Wallis one-way
analysis of variance with ranks confirmed that it was indeed in the spatially welldefined behavior settings where the most immersed forms of engaged behavior
occurred (Kruskal-Wallis; Z2 = 30-59, df = 2, P <0.001).

222

G . T . Moore

TABLE 2

Degree of engaged behavior in spatially well-defined, partially defined and

poorly defined behavior settings
Source of Variation

Adjusted df

Adjusted MS

1
1

1.89
10.71

3.60
20.40"**

2
2
1
7
654

3"41
0.42
0-54
2.93
0.53

6.51 **
0.81
1-02
5.58 ***

Covariates
SES
Center size
Main effects
Behavior setting
Teacher styles
Open-traditional
Explained
Residual

Note. Due to empty cells or a singular matrix, interactions could not be calculated.
** P < 0-01, *** P < 0.001.
TABLE 3

Initiation of behavior in spatially well-defined, partially defined and poorly defined behavior
set tings
Variation
Well-defined settings
Transitional settings
Poorly defined settings
Source of Variation
Covariates
SES
Center size
Main effects
Behavior setting
Teacher styles
Open-traditional
Explained
Residual

s.o.

419
296
308

1.93
1.91
1-98

0.81
0.80
0.81

Adjusted df

Adjusted MS

1
1

1.45
3.70

2.31
5.88

2
2
1
7
1009

0.04
1.54
11.09
2-57
0"63

0.06
2.44
17.61 ***
4.08 ***

Note. Due to empty cells or a singular matrix, interactions could not be calculated.
* P < 0.05, *** P < 0.001.

The initiation of behavior and exploratory behavior

A 3 x 3 x 2 analysis o f c o v a r i a n c e with t w o c o v a r i a t e s ( b e h a v i o r setting x teacher
styles p h i l o s o p h y o f e d u c t i o n , with SES a n d center size as c o v a r i a t e s ) s h o w e d no
evidence o f a m a i n effect for the definition o f b e h a v i o r settings n o r for t e a c h e r styles
on w h e t h e r c h i l d r e n o r s t a f f i n i t i a t e d b e h a v i o r a l sequences ( F < 1-0, n o t significant),
b u t did indicate a significant m a i n effect f o r p h i l o s o p h y o f e d u c a t i o n ( F = 17-61,
d f = 1, 1,009, P < 0-001; see T a b l e 3). D u e to e m p t y cells o r a s i n g u l a r matrix,
interactions c o u l d n o t be c a l c u l a t e d o n this t h r e e - w a y analysis o f variance. T h u s a
p a i r o f t w o - w a y analyses were c o n d u c t e d , first using t e a c h e r style a n d setting as the
m a i n factors, a n d then using e d u c a t i o n a l p h i l o s o p h y ( o p e n - t r a d i t i o n a l ) a n d setting

Spatial Definition of Behavior Settings

223

TABLE 4

Exploratory behavior in spatially well-defined, partially defined and poorly defined behavior
settings
Variation

S.D.

434
304
317

0"78
0.59
0"65

0.91
0.79
0'79

Adjusted df

Adjusted MS

1
1

1-20
7-54

1.61
10-84"**

2
2
1
7
1009

4-10
1.60
2.23
2-85
0"70

5.90 **
2.30
3-21
4.09 ***

Well-defined settings
Partially defined settings
Poorly defined settings
Source of Variation
Covariates
SES
Center size
Main effects
Behavior setting
Teacher styles
Open-traditional
Explained
Residual

Note. Due to empty cells or a singular matrix, interactions could not be calculated.
** P < 0.01, *** P < 0.001.
TABLE 5

Relative group size, number of children, and number of adults in spatially well-defined, partially
defined and poorly defined behavior settings
Welldefined

Partially
defined

Poorly
defined

Group size
M
S.D.
Residual

5.54
5.02

5-83
6"90

5.16
4.39

No. of children
M
S.D.
Residual

4-93
4"58

No. of adults
M
S.D.
Residual

0.64
0'75

4.86
6-21

0.97
1.21

df

MS

34.82

1.17

1058

29-86

35-35

1058

23.56

9.87

1058

1-01

1.50

4-34
3"57
9.74*** -

0"83
1"10

*** P < 0-001.

as the m a i n factors. I n b o t h cases, while a g a i n a m a i n effect for b e h a v i o r setting
did n o t appear, there were significant i n t e r a c t i o n s between e n v i r o n m e n t a n d style
( F = 8.87, d f = 2, 1,009, P < 0.001) a n d between e n v i r o n m e n t a n d p h i l o s o p h y
( F = 2.74, d f = 2, 92, P < 0.05) in affecting the i n i t i a t i o n o f behavior. Thus,
while the e n v i r o n m e n t b y itself does n o t seem to have a significant m a i n effect on
the i n i t i a t i o n o f behavior, well-defined b e h a v i o r settings a n d o p e n styles o f education
reinforce each other in jointly affecting who initiates b e h a v i o r a l sequences.

224

G . T . Moore

TABLE 6
Degree of social interaction in spatially well-defined, partially defined and poorly defined
behavior settings
Variation

S.D.

436
303
315

1.56
0.95
1.10

1.38
1-23
1.28

Adjusted df

Adjusted MS

1
1

7-20
0.17

2
2
1
7
621

12.81
10-76
5.01
7-77
1.66

Well-defined settings
Partially defined settings
Poorly defined settings
Source of Variation
Covariates
SES
Center size
Main effects
Behavior setting
Teacher styles
Open-traditional
Explained
Residual

4-34"
0.10
7"72"**
6.49 **
3.02
4.68 ***

Note. D u e to e m p t y cells or a s i n g u l a r m a t r i x , i n t e r a c t i o n s c o u l d n o t be calculated.

* P < 0.05, ** P < 0.01, *** P < 0.001.
TABLE 7

Proportion of cooperative versus competitive behavior in spatially, welldefined, partially defined and poorly defined behavior settings

Competition
Cooperation

Well-defined

Partially defined

Poorly defined

0-2
41 "8

2-1
25.6

1"4
29.0

Note. Z2 = 15.87, df = 2, P < 0.001.

With regard to exploratory behavior, the results of the 3 x 3 x 2 analysis of
covariance with two covariates in Table 4 indicate that exploration is directly related
to the spatial definition of behavior settings (F = 5.90, df = 2, 1,009, P < 0-01) and
inversely to center size (F = 10.84, df = 1, 1,009, P < 0.001). A follow-up multiple
classification analysis confirmed that the highest degree of exploratory behavior
occurred in spatially well-defined behavior settings in contrast to moderately and
poorly defined settings. Two-way analyses of variance on exploratory behavior did
not turn up any evidence for interaction effects between the environment and style
or philosophy of eduction (F-values ranging from 0-89 to 1.72, df = 2, 1,009,
P-values > 0.20, not significant).

Group size and social interaction

Table 5 indicates no evidence for any difference in the number of children or total
group size between centers with spatially well-defined, transitional, or poorly defined
behavior settings (F-values ranging from 1.17 to 1.50, df = 2, 1,058, not significant),
but does suggest significantly fewer adults involved in activity pockets when they

Spatial Definition of Behavior Settings

225

TABLE 8
Level of teacher involvement with children in spatially well-defined, partially
defined and poorly defined behavior settings

N of instances
M ranks

Well-defined

Partially defined

Poorly defined

205
252.31

166
253.12

159
295.42

Note. Kruskal-Wallis: ;t2 = 9.16, df = 2, P < 0.01.

are well-defined and resource rich (20% less adults present than in either of the
other types o f activity areas; F = 9.74, d f = 2, 1,058, P < 0.001; see Table 5).
Table 6 indicates that the degree o f social interaction a m o n g children was
significantly affected by the architectural definition o f behavior settings (F = 7.72,
d f = 2, 621, P < 0.001), by the style o f teachers a r o u n d the children (F = 6.49,
d f = 2, 621, P < 0.01), and by the socioeconomic b a c k g r o u n d of the children
(F = 4.34, d f = 1, 621, P < 0.05). A follow-up multiple classification analysis
confirmed that the highest degree o f social interaction occurs in well-defined settings
( M = 1.55, m i d w a y on a scale f r o m 0 to 3, and almost 0.50 higher than partially or
poorly defined settings).
Table 7 gives us m o r e information a b o u t the type o f social interactions occurring
in these settings, and indicates that cooperative versus competitive interactions are
strongly related to type o f behavior setting (Z 2 = 15-87, d f = 2, P < 0.001), again
with teacher style also influencing the type o f interactions (Z 2 = 6.15, df = 2, P <
0.05). A three-way X 2 analysis indicated a strong interaction---cooperative behavior
is m o r e p r o n o u n c e d in well-defined settings staffed by teachers with strongly open
styles o f education (Z2 = 14.34, d f = 2, P < 0.001).

Teacher involvement with children

The final analysis inquired a b o u t possible differences in teacher or care-giver
involvement with the Children in the three types o f behavior settings. As the entries
on the observation schedule for this dependent variable were ordinal in level, a
Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis o f variance with ranks was conducted. The results
in Table 8 indicate a significant difference in the level o f teacher involvement with
children as a function o f the definition o f the setting (Kruskal-Wallis: ;(2 = 9.16,
d f = 2, P < 0.01). Teachers are m o r e involved with the children in active ways
(co-action and encouragement, in contrast to passive observation or controlling
behavior) in centers having spatially well-defined activity pockets than in centers
with less well-defined behavior settings.*

Summary and Discussion

This study was designed to address two sets o f hypotheses: (1) that there are
* A comment has been requested regarding the type of activities (e.g., crafts, arts, reading, science,
building, etc.) observed in the different behavior settings. No hard data was collected on this, but it did
appear that while all centers had a full range of child care activities, centers with the better defined
behavior settings tended to have more of a one-to-one relation between activities and particular settings,
while activities seemed to meander all over the place in the more poorly defined centers.

226

G . T . Moore

more developmentally supportive behaviors in child care centers characterized by

architecturally well-defined behavior settings than in centers with poorly defined
behavior settings; and (2) that there are complex interactions linking characteristics
of individuals to characteristics of environments in influencing children's behavior.
The study attempted to address these issues in a field setting, using a systematic
naturalistic observation and quasi-experimental research design in a way that results
could be looked at with a fair amount of methodological rigor and analytic control.
The findings from this study might be considered somewhat equivocal. Centers
with better architecturally defined behavior settings seem to have an impact on
certain behaviors, but not on others. For example, contrary to expectation, no
differences were found between engaged versus random and withdrawn behaviors in
different types of behavior settings. While a relation was found between these
variables for centers with teachers espousing a very open educational philosophy,
the relation was mild and must b e t r e a t e d with caution. Similarly, no evidence was
found for any effects of the definition of behavior settings on who initiates activities-child or staff--while a significant and strong relationship was found between teacher
philosophy and who initiated activities. Not surprisingly, open philosophy teachers
permit children to initiate activities more than their traditional colleagues.
On the other hand, several analyses indicated quite clearly that the architectural
definition o f behavior settings is significantly related to other behaviors such as the
degree of engagement in developmentally supportive activities and the amount of
exploratory behavior. Considerably more engaged or immersed behaviors with little
or no time spent watching other activities or being interrupted occurs in architecturally well-defined behavior settings than in poorly defined settings. Similarly,
considerably more exploratory behavior occurs in and around well-defined settings
than poorly defined ones. This finding for exploratory behavior held across all proxy
variables, and seems to be uninfluenced by other subject or group variables.
Another pair of relationships were found for the type and the degree of social
interaction among children. Cooperative behavior occurs most often in well defined
settings, and competitive behavior seems to be related in part to poorly defined
settings. The fact that poorly defined settings are in many cases also What we call
'resource poor' settings with a relative lack o f materials visible and readily available
to the child may account in part for this difference (cf. the findings of Smith and
Connolly, 1980). Similarly, the degree of social interaction among children is related
to the definition of the setting in which the interaction takes place, with the degree
of social interaction being highest in spatially well defined setl~ings. Finally, the style
of teacher interaction is related to definition of behavior settings, with teachers
more involved with the children in active, encouraging ways.
How are we to account for these findings that the spatial definition of behavior
settings is related to degree of engagement, amount of exploratory behavior, degree
of social interaction, cooperative behavior in particular, and active styles of teacher
involvement, but not to engaged versus random-withdrawn behavior or who initiates
behavioral episodes? While some might be sanguine with a score of five goals
against two in favor of spatially well-defined behavior settings, the lack of two
hypothesized relationships, or why these two particular measured behaviors failed
to follow the general trend, deserves attention.
One possible interpretation is that certain classes of behaviors in child care settings
may be so strongly influenced by social environmental variables (in this case teacher

Spatial Definition of Behavior Settings

227

styles and philosophy of education) that the physical environment does not--and
maybe cannot--have an independent impact. This interpretation gains some support
from the pair of findings that both of the negative results--initiation of behavior and
type of behavior--were significantly related in the first case to an open philosophy
of education and in the second case to a mild interaction between open philosophy
and type of setting. Nothing behind this study presupposes an environmental determinist, or empiricist orientation, and these findings are in fact not supportive of a
strictly empiricist theory (this general point is discussed in more detail in Moore, in
press).
Another possibility is that only certain types of behaviors, perhaps those that are
inherently more active adaptations to the environment (like immersion in activities
and exploratory behavior) and those that are more small-group social (like reciprocated social interaction, mutual cooperation, and co-action between staff and
children), are subject to the influences of well articulated spatial settings that are
acoustically and visually separated, provide a stage-set for less interruptions and
longer attention spans, and thus to greater involvement in cognitive and social
developmental activities. The social behavior side of this interpretation gains some
tangential support from the findings of Smith and ConnoUy (1980) that children
play in smaller social groups or switch from larger parallel subgroups to smaller
parallel subgroups when resources are increased; it may be that they are affected in
this way both by the definition of the space and by the amount of resources, but this
remains to be tested. Similarily, the possibility that the spatial definition of behavior
settings may effect social and exploratory behaviors through the mediating variables
of less interruptions and longer attention spans was not tested in the present study
and awaits empirical investigation.
For many of these issues, however, significant interaction effects were found for
group x setting interactions. For example, we saw that there was a significant
interaction between the definition of behavior settings and the philosophy of
education jointly affecting engagement in developmentally supportive behaviors.
Similarly, the degree of spatial definition of behavior settings and teacher styles
(open styles of preschool education) combine to affect the amount of behavioral
episodes initiated by children versus by teachers. And third, the type of social
interaction among children---cooperation in particular--is related to the definition
of the setting in interaction with the teaching style of the staff members present.
A caveat must, however, be offered. The work of Smith and Connolly (1980)
indicated that not only is the amount of space important in predicting the type of play
observed in preschools, but also one must take into account the scarcity or abundance
of resources within that space. They found, for example, that when more equipment
was available, children play in smaller subgroups or switch from large parallel subgroups to smaller parallel subgroups or solitary play. The present study included a
rough measure of the amount of resources available within the behavior setting as one
of the ten defining characteristics of well defined settings. Due to the quasi-experimental
nature of the present study, where the independent environmental treatment variables
could not be directly manipulated or changed, but where existing centers were used as
the basis for study, it was not possible to systematically vary the amount of resources
independently of the degree of implied spatial enclosure. These two important facets of
what we have previously termed 'Resource-Rich Activity Pockets' (Pattern 908 of
Moore et al., 1979) remain to be disentangled in future studies.

228

G.T. Moore

The study lends considerable support for an interactional theory of environment

and behavior. According to the model described in the introduction, children's behavior in everyday environments can usefully be seen in ecological terms. According
to this general theory, behavior is a function of the total ecological environment
surrounding the individual or group.
[Jnlike most earlier approaches in the social sciences, the current model suggests
that it may be important to see the 'environment' as involving physical components,
while in contrast to many approaches in the professions concerned with the physical
environment, the current model also suggests the importance of seeing the
'environment' as involving social components. The approach taken here, therefore,
intentionally crossed social and physical factors in trying to understand children's
behavior in everyday situations. The position is taken that to understand any
behavior in its ecological context it is necessary to understand the effects of both
social and physical environmental factors, and the interaction between the two. A
few investigations and more general analyses of behavior have begun to incorporate
the physical component on equal footing with the social context in the analysis of
behavior (e.g. Stokols, 1981; Stokols and Schumaker, 1981).
The interactional theory gains considerable support from the findings on group x
setting interactions. Specifically, the results show many examples where the social
environment and the physical environment do not act independently of each other
in affecting behavior but, rather, there are highly significant interactions between
the backgrounds of the children, the teaching philosophy and style of the staff, and
the character of the physical environment in affecting both cognitive and social
behavior.
Several writers have talked about the 'fit' or 'synomorphy' between environment
and behavior where the tendencies of the organism and the configuration and
character of the physical environment are congruent (e.g. Barker, 1968; Alexander
et al., 1977). One would hope that those involved in the environmental social sciences
and the design professions would turn to the difficult but necessary task of adapting
environments to people in order to contribute both to the quality of the environment
and to the quality of life. The current findings suggest some directions for achieving
these types of fit between the socio-physical environment and human behavior.
Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
No. AZ15533-80. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the Division of
Population and Environmental Psychology, American Psychological Association
annual convention, Anaheim, California, August 1983.
My thanks to Seymour Wapner and Ina Uzgiris for their advice on the Study, to
Naomi Leiseroff and Marleen Sobczak for assistance in data collection, to Thomas
Laurent for assistance in data analysis, and to Sherry Ahrentzen, David Canter,
Roger Hart, Daniel Stokols, David Stea and two anonymous reviewers for
comments on an earlier draft.
References

Abt Associates. (1979). Children at the Center: Final Report of the National Day Care Study.
Cambridge, MA: Abt Associates.
Aiello, J. F., Gordon, B. and Farrell, T. J. (1974). Description of children's outdoor activities

Spatial Definition of Behavior Settings

229

in a suburban residential area. In D. H. Carson (ed.), Man-Environment Interactions,

Part 6. Stroudsburg, PA: Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross.
Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S. and Silverstein, M. (1977). A Pattern Language. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Barker, R. G. (1968). Ecological Psychology. Palo Alto, CA: Standford University Pressl
Barker, R. G., Dembo, T. and Lewin, K. (1941). Frustration and regression. University of
Iowa Studies in Child Welfare, 18 (Whole No. 1).
Bechtel, R. Enclosing Behavior. (1977). Stroudsburg, PA: Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross.
Bell, A. E., Switzer, F. and Zipursky, M. A. (1974). Open area education: an advantage or
disadvantage for beginners? Perceptual and Motor Skills, 39, 407-416.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). The ecology of human development in retrospect and prospect.
In H. McGurk (ed.), Ecological Factors in Human Development. Amsterdam: NorthHolland.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Brunswik, E. (1943). Organismic achievement and environmental probability. Psychological
Review, 50, 255-272.
Campbell, D. T. (1957). Factors relevant to the validity of experiments in field settings.
Psychological Bulletin, 54, 297-312.
Campbell, D. T. and Stanley, J. C. (1966). Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for
Research. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Canter, D. (1977). The Psychology of Place. New York: St. Martins.
Carp, F. (1966). A Future for the Aged. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Cohen, U,, Moore, G. T. and McGinty, T. (1978). Case Studies of ChildPlay Areas and Child
Support Facilities. Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Center for
Architecture and Urban Planning Research.
Cook, T. D. and Campbell, D. T. (1976). The design and conduct of quasi-experiments and
true experiments in field settings. In M. D. Dunnette (ed.), Handbook of Industrial and
Organizational Psychology. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Cook, T. D. and Campbell, D. T. (1979). Quasi-Experimentation. Chicago: Rand MeNally.
Doke, L. A. (1975). The organization of day care environments: formal versus informal
activities. Child Care Quarterly, 4, 216-222.
Fowler, W. (1980) Environmental standards profile: Method of assessing quality group core
and education of young children. Infant and Child Care, Vol. 2. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Gump, P. V. (1975). Ecological Psychology and Children. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Gump, P. V. (1978). School environments. In I. Altman and J. F. Wohlwill (eds), Children
and the Environment. New York: Plenum.
Harms, T. and Clifford, R. M. (1980). Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale. New York:
Teachers College Press.
Jennings, K. D., Harmon, R. J., Morgan, G. A., Gaiter, J. L. and Yarrow, L. J. (1979).
Exploratory play as an index of mastery motivation: Relationships to persistence,
cognitive functioning, and environmental measures. Developmental Psychology, 15, 386394.
Koffka, K. (1935). Principles of Gestalt Psychology. New York: Harcourt.
Kupietz, S. S. and Richardson, E. (1978). Children's vigilance performance and inattentiveness
in the classroom. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 19, 145-154.
Lewin, K. (1951). Behavior as a function of the total situation. In K. Lewin, Field Theory in
Social Science (D. Cartwright, ed.). New York: Harper.
Millar, S. (1968). The Psychology of Play. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin.
Moore, G. T. (1979). Environment-behavior studies. In J. C. Snyder and A. J. Catanese
(eds), Introduction to Architecture. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Moore, G. T. (1981). Holism, environmentalism, and ecological validity. Man-Environment
Systems, 11, 11-21.
Moore, G. T. (in press). Environment and behavior research in North America: History,
developments, and unresolved issues. In D. Stokols and I. Altman (eds), Handbook of
Environmental Psychology. New York: Wiley.
Moore, G. T., Lane, C. G., Hill, A. H., Cohen, U. and McGinty, T. (1979). Recommendations

230

G . T . Moore

for Child Care Centers. Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Center for

Architecture and Urban Planning Research.
Moore, G. T., Tuttle, D. P. and Howell, S. C. (1985). Environmental Design Research
Directions. New York: Praeger.
Nie, N. H., Hull, C. H., Jenkins, J. G., Steinbrenner, K. and Bent, D. H. (1981). SPSS:
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (2nd Edit.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Parten, M. B. (1932). Social participation among preschool children. Journal of Abnormal and
Social Psychology, 27, 243-269.
Parten, M. B. and Newhall, S. M. (1943). Social behavior of preschool children. In R. G.
Barker, J. S. Kounin and H. F. Wright (eds), Child Behaviour and Development. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Passman, R. H. and Weisberg, P. (1975). Mothers and blankets as agents for promoting play
and exploration by young children in a novel environment: the effects of social and
nonsocial attachment objects. Developmental Psychology, 11, 170-177.
Perkins, E. P. (1980, March). An ecological assessment of two preschool environments. Paper
presented at the Environmental Design Research Association Conference, Charleston,
South Carolina.
Prescott, E., Kritchevsky, S. and Jones, E. (1972). The Day Care Environmental Inventory.
Part 1 of Assessment of Child-Rearing Environments: An Ecological Approach. Pasadena,
CA: Pacific Oaks College.
Proshansky, H. M. (1972). Methodology in environmental psychology: problems and issues.
Human Factors, 14, 451460.
Reichardt, C. S. (1979). The statistical analysis of data from nonequivalent control group
designs. In T. D. Cook and D. T. Campbell. Quasi-Experimentation. Boston: HoughtonMifflin.
Reiss, S. and Dyhdalo, N. (1975). Persistence, achievement, and open-space environments.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 67, 506-513.
Rosenthal, B. A. (1974). An ecological study of free play in the nursery school. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, Wayne State University, 1973. Dissertation Abstracts International,
34 (7-A), 4004A--4005A.
Schoggen, P. and Barker, R. G. (1977). Ecological factors in development in an American
and an English small town. In H. McGurk (ed.), Ecological Factors in Human Development. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Shure, M. B. (1963). Psychological ecology of a nursery school. Child Development, 34, 979992.
Smith, P. K. (1978). A longitudinal study of social participation in preschool children: solitary
and parallel play reexamined. Developmental Psychology, 14, 517-523.
Smith, P. K. and Connolly, K. J. (1980). The Ecology of Preschool Behaviour. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
Stokols, D. (1981). Group x place transactions: some neglected issues in psychological
research on settings. In D. Magnusson (ed.), Towarda Psychology of Situations. Hillsdale,
New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Stokols, D. and Shumaker, S. A. (1981). People in places: a transactional view of settings. In
J. H. Harvey (ed.), Cognition, Social Behavior, and the Environment. Hillsdale, New
Jersey: Erlbaum.
Tolman, E. C. and Brunswick, E. (1935). The organism and the causal texture of the
environment. Psychological Review, 42, 43-77.
Traub, R. E., Weiss, J., Fisher, C. W. and Musella, D. (1972). Closure or openness: describing
and quantifying open education. Interchange (Ontario Institute for Studies of Education),
3, 69-83.
Trites, D. K., Gailbraith, F. D,, Sturdavant, M. and Leckwart, J. F. (1970). Influence of
nursing-unit design on the activities and subjective feelings of nursing personnel.
Environment and Behavior, 2, 303-334.
Verma, S. and Peters, D. L. (1975). Daycare teachers practices and beliefs. Alberta Journal of
Educational Research, 21, 46-55.
Vlietstra, A. G. (1978). Exploration and play in preschool children and young adults. Child
Development, 49, 235-238.
Wapner, S., Kaplan, B. and Cohen, S. B. (1973). An organismic-developmental perspective

Spatial Definition of Behavior Settings

231

for understanding the transactions of men and environments. Environment and Behavior,
5, 255-289.
Wicker, A. W. and Kirmeyer, S. L. (1976). From church to laboratory to national park. In
S. Wapner, S. B. Cohen and B. Kaplan (eds), Experiencing the Environment. New York:
Plenum.
Wohlwill, J. F. (1980). The confluence of environmental and developmental psychology:
signpost for an ecology of development? Human Development, 23, 354-358.
Wright, R. J. (1975). The affective and cognitive consequences of an open education
elementary school. American Educational Research Journal, 12, 449-468.
Zeisel, J. (1981). Inquiry by Design. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Manuscript received: 14 August 1985

Revised manuscript received." 4 April 1986