Exploration of principles affecting children’s independent mobility by zone- based method in Ilam

Abstract

In normative studies, which provide qualitative result to promote children's independent mobility (CIM), enough attention is not paid to the attitudes of children, parents, and experts. Positive research that investigates children's independent mobility using measuring instruments, the researcher understanding of the study context and perceptual characteristics of children and parents is limited. The present study aims at investigating the variables of children's independent mobility using exploration and confirmatory methods, respectively. Analysis of 1896 behavioral places made possible discovering 9 selected range of independent mobility and 4 principles related to the promotion of children's independent mobility . Expert attitudes were assessed by Delphi technique and the exploratory principles were ranked by Shannon’s entropy. Factor analysis was used to confirm the effect of 5 factors on improving children's independent mobility (N= 204). The housing type, number of floors, level of residency, street type, green-space, perceived safety and gender differences were variables related to children's independent mobility .

Keywords

• children’s independent mobility
• place-based study
• behavioral-perceptual place
• ilam