Acoustical Comfort in Primary School Classrooms in the City of Joao Pessoa, Paraiba, Brazil

Abstract

Based on Brazilian and International normative guidelines, acoustical comfort was evaluated in 119 primary school classrooms in the City of Joao Pessoa (Brazil). A Beta Regression Model (BRM) was built, through which it was verified to what extent acoustic parameters of these rooms can affect teacher speech intelligibility. It was found that the Levels of Noise from external sources, Background Noise, Reverberation Time and the Speech Intelligibility Index are not within reference values established by the norms. Reverberation Time affects the quality of intelligibility at around 77.18%.

Quality of Life in Voice, Vocal Changes and Voice Intelligibility of Teachers

“…The findings of the present study corroborate the studies by Coutinho Filho [19], Silva, Silva and Coutinho [20], Dalvite et al [21], and Silva and Santos [22], in the sense that care with the acoustic environment in classrooms seem to be an overlooked or ignored factor by the responsible authorities. It is noteworthy that the studies mentioned above were performed in regular schools, unlike the present study, which was conducted in Reference Schools.…”