Students Say Green Spaces Enhance Campus

Campus green spaces can help students feel better about life and improve learning, Texas State University researchers suggest.

The researchers questioned 373 undergraduates at the San Marcos campus of Texas State University and ranked them as low users, medium users or high users of campus green spaces.

More than 90 percent of respondents were ranked as either high or medium users of green space. Students were also asked to rate their perception of quality of life. A mean score of more than 4 — on a scale of 1 to 5 — indicated that most students rated their quality of life as positive.

The researchers made a statistically significant correlation between green space users and those who gave a high rating to their quality of life.

“These findings indicated that those (students) who used campus green spaces more frequently rated their overall quality of life higher when compared with students who used the campus green spaces and arboretum less frequently,” McFarland said in a statement.

The study, published in the journal HortTechnology, also found that high users of campus green spaces also rated their cognitive ability to apply knowledge learned in college as higher when compared to those students who spent less time in green spaces.