An investigation of the relationship between sense of place and place attachment among dormitory students

Today, there are many concepts such as a sense of place and attachment to place presented in architecture and urban literature in the field of environmental studies. Meanwhile, relationship between the two is not much explained. This study defines the concept of sense of place and attachment to place and the factors influencing them followed by providing a four- dimensional model derived from social factors influencing the two concepts as the study theoretical model. This four- dimensional model was tested in case studies of Eram and Ghods dormitories of Shiraz University. In this study, depth interviews and questionnaires were used to collect data for process of testing. Spss software was used to analyze and interpret the survey results. After research questionnaires were completed, the data were analyzed via the software through appropriate statistical methods at descriptive and inferential levels. At descriptive level, relative frequency and cumulative distributions were used. At inferential level, taking into account the nature of the variables, correlation coefficient, regression and comparison of means were used. Finally, the paper presents hypothesis tests and discussion of the results. Given the variable measurement level, Pearson correlation coefficient test was used to support or reject hypotheses. Obtained results show that there is a strong relationship between sense of place and attachment to place. The findings also suggest that physical factors of the environment are important to create a sense of place and time as well as attachment to place. Moreover, time factor has lowest degree of importance in creating a sense of place compared with the creation of sense of attachment to the place. This factor is the most important after physical factors.