Thermal perception and satisfaction of Italian students in distance (home) learning vs face-to-face learning environments during the heating season

Abstract

During the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic situation, millions of high school students in Italy had to adapt a room in their home for partial distance learning. This paper investigates the thermal perception and satisfaction with the thermal conditions expressed by 45 teenage students alternating between Distance Learning (DL) and Face-to-face learning (FL) during that period. Students completed questionnaires about their perception and satisfaction with the thermal environment while air temperature and humidity were monitored for 14 weeks. The thermal conditions in the classrooms, where students attended classes every other day, were also monitored during this time. The results show that students at home experienced a high percentage of time with conditions outside recommended comfort limits. Nevertheless, most of the students expressed a TSV equal to 0. In addition, the proposed long-term thermal discomfort indicators, such as running mean of the indoor air temperature, correlated rather poorly with subjective votes. This may indicate that different indices should be considered when analyzing mid-term subjective thermal comfort evaluations.