THERMAL/AIR ENVIRONMENT EFFECTS ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF LATE-TEEN STUDENTS

Abstract

This study investigated the IEQ effects on learning performance by means of field survey, and the target group was late-teen students. The field experiments were carried out at two technical colleges in Japan. At each college, a ordinary use classroom was adopted for the experiment. In order to evaluate the effects of indoor temperature and outdoor air supply rate, air conditioning units and ventilation fans were controlled at 3 levels (22, 25, 28 °C; 5, 10, 20 m3/s/person) and 5 combinations of them were adopted as the experimental cases. In every case, the learning performance was evaluated with a 30-minute examination after a 180-minute video image lecture. The results showed that the examination score decreased in the case of low temperature or low outdoor air supply rate. However, the examination score was not changed in the case of high temperature, which might be caused by seasonal effect. According to comparisons with previous studies, the learning performance of late-teen people was considered to be less affected by indoor environment than that of older people, if their background knowledge of the learning subjects was equivalent to the older people.