| Popis: |
Contemporary research linking children’s daily travel with the psychological and cognitive domains of wellbeing is emerging. In this chapter, we explore these two domains of wellbeing by reviewing the literature to see how the domains are operationalized, and what the empirical findings claim. One major aim is to reflect upon where research has taken us, and to identify what future research needs to focus on. Findings show that psychological measures include a large palette of measurements, for example, mood, wellbeing (sometimes operationalized as life satisfaction or happiness), travel satisfaction, independency, and confidence, which are all related to travel. Measures related to the cognitive domain can be categorized as either academic achievement or cognitive abilities, also identified as being affected by travel. Only three studies were identified as capturing the relationship between travel and both domains of wellbeing. One conclusion which we draw is that, although the findings are still somewhat anecdotal and in need of replication, researchers in this emerging field have indeed acknowledged the importance of examining the psychological and cognitive domains of wellbeing when it comes to studying children’s everyday travel. We also find that the studies reviewed have applied a plethora of methods and measures, making it somewhat difficult to generalize the findings. We therefore emphasize that we must constantly ask ourselves if we are measuring the relevant factors, and if we are measuring them in a valid way. |
