Towards measuring comprehensive nature experience
The aim of this study was to develop a new measure for comprehensive nature experience (CNE) which consists of emotions, self-experience and characteristics of nature. The structure, reliability and the structural, criterion and known group validity of the CNE measure were evaluated. The main data consisted of Finnish adults who visited a health portal (n = 485) or participated in a nature-based intervention (n = 49). In order to evaluate the validity of the CNE measure, secondary data was collected among university students (n = 347). Factor analysis was used to evaluate the structure of CNE. The reliability of CNE was assessed with Cronbach’s alphas. Structural and criterion validity were evaluated with Pearson correlation coefficients. In order to assess known group validity, the dimensions of CNE were compared with analysis of variance among three groups of nature experience identified in an earlier quantitative study (i.e., restoration, health experiences and ambivalent experiences).