Browsing by Author "Professor Art Rice, Committee Member"

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    Understanding Change in Place: Spatial Knowledge Acquired by Visually Impaired Users Through the Change in Footpath Materials.
    (2009-04-24) Payne, Andrew Phillip; Dr. John O. Tector, Committee Chair; Professor Art Rice, Committee Member; Dr. Christopher B. Mayhorn, Committee Member; Professor Meredith Davis, Committee Member
    PAYNE, ANDREW PHILLIP. Understanding Change in Place: Spatial Knowledge Acquired by Visually Impaired Users Through Change in Footpath Materials. (Under the direction of Dr. John O. Tector.) Throughout time, humans have traveled to new places and experienced unfamiliar territories oftentimes without fear of what lies ahead. However, in today’s world any environment outside of our everyday paths of travel can be challenging and intimidating. This research sets out to investigate the role of typical footpath construction materials in communicating a user’s position within an urban environment. While illustrating the importance of detecting changes in materials, it argues that positional information should be available to all users. To examine this phenomenon, this study compares the two components – user and materials. Within the research, a theoretical framework is developed to explain the direct relationship between user and material, and a methodological design is used to elicit detectable values of each material independently and when compared to one another. By doing so, this research produces a means of evaluating the existing and future use of construction materials as a component of larger way-finding systems. This research will have a practical importance from the standpoint of determining which combinations of footpath construction materials are best detectable, identifiable, and able to be used in way-finding by visually impaired travelers within an urban setting.
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    The Visitor Experience at Jockey's Ridge: Humans and Nature in a Dynamic Coastal Landscape.
    (2006-07-25) Mitas, Ondrej; Professor Art Rice, Committee Member; Dr. Karla Henderson, Committee Member; Dr. Gene Brothers, Committee Chair
    As population and developed areas in the U.S. continue to grow, rapidly changing environments such as dunes, swamps, floodplains, and cliffs will have to be managed with more attention to surrounding civilization. In some cases, human interventions can "freeze in time" aspects of these environments, preserving landscape features for future generations, but also fundamentally changing their naturalistic character. To be socially equitable, such decisions must be informed by empirical measures of the benefits visitors gain from the park in its current state as well as the benefits they gain from the processes that are visibly changing it. Jockey's Ridge State Park in Nags Head, North Carolina contains the largest active sand dune on the U.S. Atlantic coast is located in the midst of dense, commercially-oriented tourist development. A sustainable management policy for Jockey's Ridge will require understanding the experiences of nearly 800,000 annual visitors to the park. Knowing what the visitors most value in the opportunity to visit and experience the park is especially important. Data were collected by a paper questionnaire given to a systematic sample of visitors entering the park at various times of day during the peak summer season and also during the early fall of 2005. The questionnaire contained 24 interval-level scale items as well as several open-ended questions which asked visitors for their thoughts on Jockey's Ridge as a unique attraction in the Northern Outer Banks tourism context and their feelings on the dynamic nature of the park's natural features. A factor analysis of scale items revealed five factors: Personal Benefits, Observing Nature, Sensational Benefits, Structured Activities, and Solitude. The scores for these five factors were then entered as independent variables for a series of linear and logistic regressions. Several significant relationships were found between the factors and behavioral and perceptual variables. Responses to the open-ended questions were content analyzed for themes and coded to determine theme occurrences and relationships, revealing a variety of important themes in the experience of the dynamic landscape of Jockey's Ridge in the context of Outer Banks tourism. The importance of nature as communicated in the qualitative responses suggested that for many visitors nature is at the center of the Jockey's Ridge experience. The nature-oriented management of Jockey's Ridge as a State Park and the natural character of its landscape offer visitors a relief or contrast from the highly developed touristic environs of the Northern Outer Banks. The experience of nature with the dune feature as its chief attraction provided opportunities for family time and bonding, peace and quiet, and visual enjoyment of a spectacular natural scene. Experience of Jockey's Ridge as a natural setting led to the predominant perception that the ever-changing size and shape of the dune are caused by natural processes. Many visitors experienced changes as enjoyable or simply inevitable. The importance of nature to the Jockey's Ridge experience shows that the active dune should be managed with the minimum visible interference that is necessary. The results suggest that in a densely developed tourism context, visitors enjoy many naturebased attractions as a relief from or contrast to commercial, impactful, and crowded activity options. When an attraction such as Jockey's Ridge offers a significant area for free movement, natural and cultural significance, and interpretive facilities, visitors gain a variety of benefits that can facilitate social and familial cohesion as well as ecological awareness.