Overall effects of temperature steps in hot summer on students' subjective perception, physiological response and learning performance

Abstract

University students are very likely to experience temperature steps before class in hot summer. This study aims to investigate the overall effects of step changes on students' subjective perception, physiological response and learning performance, so as to explore an optimal thermal condition for classrooms in hot summer. Four typical temperature step conditions (S6: 34 °C-28 °C, S8: 34 °C-26 °C, S10: 34 °C-24 °C, S12: 34 °C–22 °C) were developed to conduct experiments on sixteen participants. It has been found that after temperature steps, no more than 62.5% of students consistently found thermally acceptable at 22 °C; students felt the most acceptable and comfortable at 26 °C; the effect of thermal environment on workload was not significant in most cases, especially for memory-related tasks; students' negative mood was less at 26 °C than at 28 °C and 22 °C. When the temperature step was less than S12, blood pressure and blood oxygen saturation were insensitive to temperature steps; core temperature continued to rise during the first 5 min and then decreased significantly when the temperature step exceeded S8. No significant difference in learning performance was found among the four conditions; the differences in relative performance between thermal conditions were <2%, and are not likely to have practical meaning in building management practice. Overall, the optimal thermal condition is 26 °C, and it is recommended to set the indoor temperature between 24 and 28 °C.