Research designs start with the paradigm, theories, hypothesis, methods, analysis, results and implementations and conclusions. This field uses a variety of study methods ranging from field to laboratory settings tutoring their research approach to the particular features of the setting under study and the specific have been used along with experimental methods in both laboratory and fields settings. This varied and flexible approach is especially important because the complex nature of environment behavior relationship which confront research with unique methodological challenges. For example to study the behavior of patients in a hospital setup naturalistic observation methods are used, experiment method is used to study and analyze how crowding affect behavior, quasi experience design is used to learn how urban crime rates are influenced by the contrasting feature of physical design of two housing project. Environment study grew rapidly in the 1960's but the origin can be tracked back to 1947 when two researches Roger Barker and Herbert Wright tackled real world activities in their natural complexity and diversity recording behavior. Environment impact is experienced walking to school, in activities such as buying groceries and engaging in conversation. They studied people behavior as it occurred in natural contexts. They defined environment unit they were interested in as a behavior setting. A behavior setting included a particular pattern of behavior along with the environment and temporal features that surrounded the behavior. They also proposed a new field of study called ecological psychology- with major goal was to study and learn how people behavior and development are influenced by the physical environment that is a part of their everyday lives. Wicker (1979) has recently applied the principles of ecological psychology to study the behavioral consequences of overpopulation in a variety of human settings. Environmental Design Paradigms:- Proshanty (1972) points out that the environment is problem oriented in that it attempts to answer a wide a range of practical question asked by architects, interior designers and city planners. Central to the concern of the architects and designers, Kiyosh Inzum (1965) describe some of the ways in which physical features and human activities are interrelated in architecture design. At one extreme are buildings designed primarily to contain machinery equipment and other inanimate object. At other extreme are building designed to solely contain human beings- nursing homes, penitentian psychiatric hospitals and housing in general between. Thus there are buildings used to contain both people and object in varying proportions libraries laboratories stores officers etc. An important body of applied research in this field has attempted to assess attitudes of people towards features of natural environment. Such decision can thus be used to develop environmental science on one hand and recreational sites and reservation programs for natural landscape. Use based environment assessments might also be used in the management of natural water resources and decisions involving the science for recreational or industrial development of water resources. Environment stress models have been applied in efforts to understand how people react to a wide range of environment stressors, such as excessive heat, high noise level and crowding. Other theories have proposed that certain types of environmental setting, such as those that are over crowding or low in privacy restrict behavioral freedom to people. Several investigators have proposed theories to explain the negative effects that crowed setting sometimes have on people. Some theories have suggested that high level of crowding produces excesses of social and sensory information that overload an individual capacity to process them. Economic models emphasize the point that environmental assets and the services generated by them be valued in monetary terms. Many people would answer that in negative. But if environmental effects are to be taken into consideration in economic decision-making, then there is no alternative but to attempt to put monetary values on them. By measuring the value of environmental assets in monetary terms, one is not "valuing the environment" in itself. Rather one is estimating "the value of things" from environment through observed individual human economic behaviour. Many people are totally against the idea of valuing the environment
in monetary terms. They suggest that the environment is "beyond
price", meaning that it is infinitely valued. As far as the environments
function as providing basic life support system is concerned, it may
indeed be so. Without the minimum 'Critical Natural Capital', life on
the planet would not be possible. Given that there is no substitute
for this critical natural capital, we can't afford to play with it.
However, when it comes to environmental assets in broader sense, the
society's behaviour does not conform to the idea of valuing environmental
assets infinitely. If environmental assets were of infinite value we
would never allow any form of environmental degradation, yet no society
devotes all of its GNP to environmental protection. OECD countries typically
spend 1-2 percent of this GNP on it. There can, however, not be much
dispute by if infinite value is meant that the environmental assets
have very high values. |