Experimental investigation of the effect of indoor air temperature on students' learning performance under the summer conditions in China

Abstract

The thermal environment of a classroom has a crucial impact on the learning performance and thermal perceptions of students. In this research, a controlled environment was established to study the effect of indoor environment on students' learning performance in summer. The keystone of this research was to study the effect of indoor air temperature on students' thermal perception and learning performance. For this study, students were recruited to participate in the experiments under various air temperature conditions. A subjective evaluation questionnaire that contained thermal sensation votes, thermal satisfaction votes, and other environmental quality satisfaction votes was distributed to ascertain the thermal comfort of the participants and gather their evaluations of the indoor environment quality. In addition, participant learning performance was quantitatively tested via tasks, involving perception, attention, learning–memory, and thinking. At the same time, the body temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate of participants were measured before and after the learning performance tests. All of the above test results were analyzed, and the relationships among thermal comfort, learning performance, and thermal environment were obtained. The results showed that within the experimental temperature range, optimal performance was obtained when participants felt “slightly warm.” An environment of cold discomfort was more harmful to learning performance than an environment of warm discomfort. As thermal satisfaction votes increased, learning performance improved. Finally, the conclusions of this experiment provide some data support for the thermal environment design of classrooms used during the summer.