Thermal comfort and adaptive capacities: Differences among students at various school stages

Abstract

In educational buildings, ensuring thermal comfort is crucial in guaranteeing pupils' health and high learning. Previous studies show different thermal comfort expectations in the educational stage. However, only a few studies have simultaneously investigated all educational stages and considered schools and universities in different areas. In this study, data collected from 24 classrooms in the winter and 1548 questionnaires were used to analyse all the educational stages in one region, thus minimising the possible bias associated with the climate zone, operation mode, and cultural adaptation. Hence, all differences in the perception of the thermal environment were likely to be due to only the educational stage. The results showed that adaptive capacities, such as clothing insulation and window operation, decrease at lower educational stages. Neutral, comfort and preferred temperatures are largely dependent on the educational stage and increase with it (e.g. 20.6, 21.7, 23.1, and 23.6 °C for primary school, middle school, high school, and university, respectively). Furthermore, a linear relationship between students’ age and neutral temperature was derived. These differences in thermal comfort expectations were reflected in the variable predictive capability of the predicted mean vote (the greatest difference between predicted and actual thermal sensations in primary school). Overall, this study provides evidence of the necessity for thermal comfort models that can capture variations depending on the educational stage.