Personal Projects Analysis
"Personal projects" here are defined according to Personal Projects Analysis (PPA), a methodology developed by \cite{Little_1983}. Personal projects are a unit of analysis that allows researchers to study human personality in relation to social, physical and temporal contexts. In this paper, we are only interested in how personal projects and PPA can be used correlation to physical contexts (campus built environments) and to well-being. In PPA, a user is asked to identify 10-15 personal projects, categorize and classify them, and then identify which projects have effects on each other. *talk about why PPA is good, because it correlates to well-being*
Furthermore, PPA is a particularly appropriate methodology for evaluating environmental affects on individuals because "personal projects are characterized by a high degree of ecological contingency. Their course depends not only upon the internal strivings, but also upon the environmental affordances or contextual constraints" \cite{WALLENIUS_1999} \cite{Little1983}
College Campuses
Now that we have delved into the reasoning behind the methodology choice, it is necessary to discuss why colleges were chosen as a study site. Universities, or Higher Education Institutions (HEIs hereafter), are an interesting setting to research behavior and well-being because a large chunk of Americans attends them. In 2015, 40.5% of the total 18-24 year-old population in U.S. was enrolled in a college or university \cite{dillow2016}. Furthermore, also in 2015, 58.19% of all students enrolled in college or universities were between the age of 19 and 24, 40.7% was 25 or older (Snyder 2016). This means that the majority of the users or customers of HEIs are young adults between the age of 19 and 24. Because this paper employs PPA, which relates to goal-setting and behavior, the young adult population is ideal because they are at a critical development stage in their lives. They are still learning about themselves but they are expected to figure out their long-term life goals. Furthermore, because this paper sets out to evaluate well-being partly as a result of one's ability to achieve personal projects, ability of goal attainment is key. As Brian Little says “Young adults are [...] plagued by ambiguity that decreases the likelihood of goal attainment.” They are a vulnerable population in terms of their ability to achieve their goals, and because so many young adults attend college, we decided that would be an appropriate setting.