Experimental investigation of the potential influence of indoor air velocity on students’ learning performance in summer conditions

Abstract

In addition to carbon dioxide concentration and indoor temperature, it is also important to obtain the effect of air velocities on the learning performance of young students in the classroom. In this study, the thermal comfort and learning performance of primary and secondary school students under air velocities of 0.1, 0.6, and 1.0 m/s and the indoor temperature of 26°C and 29°C conditions in summer were experimentally evaluated. During the experiment, subjects’ learning performance was measured quantitatively under different conditions, and subjective questionnaires providing thermal comfort results were collected. Moreover, subjects’ physiological parameters (body temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate) were measured also. Finally, the classification criteria and methods for environmental parameters under the learning performance conditions were established in this study. Based on the experimental results, the correlation between air velocity/thermal comfort and learning performance was obtained. For example, as the air velocity increased, the learning performance continuously decreased. The results shown that the learning performance was more efficiently when the thermal sensation was “slightly warm” The learning performance decreased when deviating from this thermal sensation, whereas the learning performance increased as the thermal satisfaction votes increased. Finally, the ranges of air velocity under different learning performance environment conditions were obtained.