Children's choice of playground equipment: Development of methodology for integrating user preferences into environmental engineering

Abstract

Determined whether preference scaling techniques could be used to aid engineering system design. Children's play equipment was selected as the design area. Paired comparison and rank-order methods were used to determine whether 48 3rd-4th graders had preferences for different types of play equipment; whether these preferences were reliable over time; and whether actual use of play equipment was predictable from the preference scales developed. Photographic stimuli were used for the scaling and were presented to Ss. The frequency of use of play equipment was also determined using time-lapse photography. Results indicate that (a) Ss did have stable and reliable preferences for play equipment and (b) these preferences were correlated with actual usage of the equipment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)