2.2. On-site survey and data collection

In-person surveys using paper questionnaires were conducted from September to November in 2021 when there have been two major waves in Beijing during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Fig. 1). In summer vacation (i.e., July and August) there are usually many tourists from other cities to visit urban parks in Beijing such as Jingshan Park. Therefore, we began the survey in September and continued until a small cluster of COVID-19 cases happened in the late November when students were not allowed to leave our campus until the end of the semester. The whole study was conducted in accordance with the ethics requirement of the College of Forestry and the procedures were reviewed and approved by the College of Forestry of Beijing Forestry University. Surveys in all sites were collected from 8 am to 5 pm during weekdays and weekends. The survey aimed to gather the recreation experience evaluation from field park visitors; thus person-to-person on-site survey was conducted with trained interviewers to ensure respondents remain focused while completing the questionnaire and detailed explanation toward questions in the questionnaire could be given to respondents. Respondents were chosen randomly (Kelfve et al., 2020). To minimize bias, paper questionnaires were distributed dispersedly within a park to avoid unrepresentative recording in concentrated locations or focusing on specific groups of visitors (Stessens et al., 2020). We collected at least 50 questionnaires ( Table 2) at each park. The questionnaire included the respondents’ evaluation of satisfaction with urban park accessibility in Part 1 and self-reported health conditions in Part 2. Part 2 included a comparative question to evaluate the health effects of urban park usage before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Evaluations used a rating scale from 0 to 10 to capture respondents’ diverse opinions (Lehberger et al., 2021). Part 3 inquired regarding respondents’ urban park usage patterns. Part 4 included personal information about age group (0–14, 15–25, 26–50, 50–64, ≥65), gender, and district of residence. The age category (0−14) classification was based on the national age bracket for children of China.

Different restrictions in Beijing during two waves (bold font for the specific outbreak month) and small clusters of COVID-19 cases.

Variables for on-site questionnaire survey.