Subjective and objective assessment of acoustical and overall environmental quality in secondary school classrooms

Abstract

A subjective survey on perceived environmental quality has been carried out on 51 secondary-school classrooms, some of which have been acoustically renovated, and acoustical measurements were carried out in eight of the 51 classrooms, these eight being representative of the different types of classrooms that are the subject of the survey. A questionnaire, which included items on overall quality and its single aspects such as acoustical, thermal, indoor air and visual quality, has been administered to 1006 students. The students perceived that acoustical and visual quality had the most influence on their school performance and, with the same dissatisfaction for acoustical, thermal and indoor air quality, they attributed more relevance, in the overall quality judgment, to the acoustical condition. Acoustical quality was correlated to speech comprehension, which was correlated to the speech transmission index, even though the index does not reflect all the aspects by which speech comprehension can be influenced. Acoustical satisfaction was lower in nonrenovated classrooms, and one of the most important consequences of poor acoustics was a decrease in concentration. The stronger correlation between average noise disturbance scores and L(A max) levels, more than L(Aeq) and L(A90), showed that students were more disturbed by intermittent than constant noise.

Analysis of intelligibility and reverberation time recommendations in educational rooms

“…Because this is more relevant in the first years of education, several studies have been conducted to assess acoustic conditions in primary classrooms [2][3][4][5] and the effect of these acoustic conditions on student achievement [6,7]. However, the problem associated with acoustics in educational classrooms is also a drawback in secondary and university classrooms [8][9][10][11]. Thus, a common renovation of materials in these classrooms is necessary to achieve more appropriate acoustical conditions [11][12].…”

A survey of acoustic conditions and noise levels in secondary school classrooms in England

“…10) found that unoccupied levels ranged from 33 to 54 dB L Aeq . A survey of noise in Italian secondary schools found much lower background noise levels (measured with the students present but quiet) of 33-44 dBA L Aeq , 9 while university classrooms have been found to have background levels of 35 dBA. 24 There are less published data on occupied levels during lesson activities, particularly in secondary schools.…”

“…[8][9][10] This paper describes a study of the acoustic characteristics of secondary schools in the UK to provide information on the acoustic environment typical of today's schools and to examine factors which affect acoustic conditions in schools. The study includes noise and acoustic surveys of unoccupied and occupied spaces in secondary school buildings.…”

Global noise score indicator for classroom evaluation of acoustic performances in LIFE GIOCONDA project

“…The combination of these data could allow the understanding of the gap between the perceived and the objective pollution. Some previous studies already investigated this gap [16][17][18][19][20] but this project aims to offer a further step in communicating the results to the surveyed students and to increase their awareness about the negative effect of a noisy environment on the learning process. Finally, an online platform will be developed in order to facilitate the application of environmental and health risk governance and policies..…”