Noisy Classroom Research Articles

The Neurophysiological Costs of Learning in a Noisy Classroom: An Ecological Virtual Reality Study.

Many real-life situations can be extremely noisy, which makes it difficult to understand what people say. Here, we introduce a novel audiovisual virtual reality experimental platform to study the behavioral and neurophysiological consequences of background noise on processing continuous speech in highly realistic environments. We focus on a context where the ability to understand speech is particularly important: the classroom. Participants (n = 32) experienced sitting in a virtual reality classroom and were told to pay attention to a virtual teacher giving a lecture. Trials were either quiet or contained background construction noise, emitted from outside the classroom window. Two realistic types of noise were used: continuous drilling and intermittent air hammers. Alongside behavioral outcomes, we measured several neurophysiological metrics, including neural activity (EEG), eye-gaze and skin conductance (galvanic skin response). Our results confirm the detrimental effect of background noise. Construction noise, and particularly intermittent noise, was associated with reduced behavioral performance, reduced neural tracking of the teacher's speech and an increase in skin conductance, although it did not have a significant effect on alpha-band oscillations or eye-gaze patterns. These results demonstrate the neurophysiological costs of learning in noisy environments and emphasize the role of temporal dynamics in speech-in-noise perception. The finding that intermittent noise was more disruptive than continuous noise supports a "habituation" rather than "glimpsing" hypothesis of speech-in-noise processing. These results also underscore the importance of increasing the ecologically relevance of neuroscientific research and considering acoustic, temporal, and semantic features of realistic stimuli as well as the cognitive demands of real-life environments.

Exploring Factors Contributing to Students’ Unwillingness to Communicate in English as a Foreign Language Classroom

This study aimed to explore the factors influencing EFL learners' unwillingness to communicate in English oral communication. Data were collected through a questionnaire that assessed three key dimensions: teacher-related factors, affective factors, and environmental factors. The findings revealed that among the three dimensions, teacher-related factors had the most significant impact on learners' unwillingness to communicate. The results regarding affective factors showed that lack of family support and motivation, fear of peer criticism, and poor listening skills were considerable predictors of learners' reluctance to engage in oral communication. Additionally, unfamiliar topics and vocabulary deficiencies further negatively influenced their willingness to speak. Furthermore, findings about environmental factors, large class size, lack of learner autonomy, insufficient use of ICT tools, and noisy classrooms, were found to inhibit EFL learners' willingness to communicate in English. The study highlights the critical role of teachers in creating a supportive, student-centered environment and fostering positive teacher-student rapport to enhance learners' willingness to speak in English class.

“I feel like a pack a day smoker”: Teacher and student voices from noisy classrooms

Concerns about the effects of poor classroom acoustics on student learning (particularly on students who are deaf or hard of hearing) have been expressed since the 1950s, yet research continues to indicate that poor classroom acoustics are both common, and related to poorer student outcomes in academic achievement, attention, behavior, and most recently, mental health. Teachers are not immune to the detrimental effects of noise; for them, research indicates a higher incidence of voice problems, absenteeism and job stress. However, little is reported about what teachers and students themselves have to say about their experiences attempting to learn under adverse listening conditions, and what changes for them when acoustical conditions improve. Their voices are largely missing from the research literature but they illuminate the problem in ways that quantitative data does not always capture. This presentation by an educational audiologist with over 35 years of experience in classrooms will provide an overview of the research on learning under adverse listening conditions, with a focus on representing teacher and student voices through qualitative research and anecdotal reports. The title is a quote from a teacher describing her voice problems and fatigue after a day of teaching.

Individual characteristics moderate listening effort in noisy classrooms

Comprehending the teacher’s message when other students are chatting is challenging. Even though the sound environment is the same for a whole class, differences in individual performance can be observed, which might depend on a variety of personal factors and their specific interaction with the listening condition. This study was designed to explore the role of individual characteristics (reading comprehension, inhibitory control, noise sensitivity) when primary school children perform a listening comprehension task in the presence of a two-talker masker. The results indicated that this type of noise impairs children’s accuracy, effort, and motivation during the task. Its specific impact depended on the level and was modulated by the child’s characteristics. In particular, reading comprehension was found to support task accuracy, whereas inhibitory control moderated the effect of listening condition on the two measures of listening effort included in the study (response time and self-ratings), even though with a different pattern of association. A moderation effect of noise sensitivity on perceived listening effort was also observed. Understanding the relationship between individual characteristics and classroom sound environment has practical implications for the acoustic design of spaces promoting students’ well-being, and supporting their learning performance.

Be Quiet! Effects of Competing Speakers and Individual Characteristics on Listening Comprehension for Primary School Students.

Students learn in noisy classrooms, where the main sources of noise are their own voices. In this sound environment, students are not equally at risk from background noise interference during lessons, due to the moderation effect of the individual characteristics on the listening conditions. This study investigates the effect of the number of competing speakers on listening comprehension and whether this is modulated by selective attention skills, working memory, and noise sensitivity. Seventy-one primary school students aged 10 to 13 years completed a sentence comprehension task in three listening conditions: quiet, two competing speakers, and four competing speakers. Outcome measures were accuracy, listening effort (response times and self-reported), motivation, and confidence in completing the task. Individual characteristics were assessed in quiet. Results showed that the number of competing speakers has no direct effects on the task, whilst the individual characteristics were found to moderate the effect of the listening conditions. Selective attention moderated the effects on accuracy and response times, working memory on motivation, and noise sensitivity on both perceived effort and confidence. Students with low cognitive abilities and high noise sensitivity were found to be particularly at risk in the condition with two competing speakers.

Relationship between speech intelligibility and comprehension in the presence of poor acoustics and poor voice quality

Noisy classrooms with poor acoustics decrease children’s speech understanding and comprehension. The signal quality is also often degraded by voice disorders that have a prevalence of 60% among teachers. Emerging evidence demonstrates that cognitive factors such as working memory (WM), attention, and inhibitory control (IC) also mediate children’s ability to recognize speech in noise. Speech intelligibility and comprehension tests were performed in a sound-proof booth with xx normal-hearing elementary students. The vocal material was recorded by an actor with normal and mimicked dysphonic voice. Babble noise was added to obtain 2 signal-to-noise (SNR) ratios at 0 and −12 dB. The test was administered using Qualtrics to collect intelligibility and comprehension scores, and measure response time to evaluate listening effort. Children’s WM and IC were also evaluated to explain individual differences. Results showed a statistically significant decrease in performance and increase in response time for the highest SNR and the dysphonic voice with a more detrimental effect on comprehension. This research determined how listening comprehension interacts with speech recognition and cognitive factors in children, providing pilot data to examine the variability of students' learning experience in classrooms when auditory input is degraded by poor acoustics and poor voice quality.

Listening effort for sentence comprehension in noisy classroom: the mediating role of linguistic factors, inhibitory control and noise sensitivity

Children learn in noisy classrooms, where often the main masker is their own babble. Even when the acoustic conditions are favorable (i.e. low noise levels), differences in individual performance and listening effort in complex academic tasks are observed. Personal characteristics such as linguistic and cognitive skills, and sensitivity to noise have been reported as factors supporting students' performance. Moreover, the Framework for Understanding Effortful Listening (FUEL) postulates that the additional individual dimension of children's motivation should be considered when evaluating listening effort besides task-related cognitive demands. This study aims to explore the interplay of the above-mentioned individual factors for primary school children (N=120, grades 3 to 5) doing a sentence comprehension task in a two-talkers background noise. Data on both accuracy and response time, as well as self-ratings of effort and motivation were acquired. In addition, inhibitory control, linguistic competences and self-ratings of noise sensitivity were measured in quiet. Results first highlight how acoustic conditions and linguistic competencies influence child's motivation, and then show how the child's inhibitory control and noise sensitivity mediate behavioral and subjective effort. Thus, individual factors shall be taken into consideration when evaluating the effect of classroom acoustics on the performance in academic tasks.

Responsive Classroom Management Practices in the Context of Preschool Teachers’ Professional Experiences

Responsive classroom management can be achieved by the harmonious combination of many variables such as teacher and child characteristics. One of these variables is the professional experience of teachers. Professional experience affects teachers' practices, expectations and attitudes regarding children. Accordingly, the present study aimed to identify responsive classroom management practices within the context of pre-school teachers' professional experiences. The research sample consisted of 60 preschool teachers. The teachers' knowledge about responsive classroom management practices was identified in writing with the help of a questionnaire made up of open-ended and multiple-choice questions created by the researchers. In the study, which was designed as a case study, inductive and descriptive analyses were used to analyze the data. The results of the study revealed that both experienced teachers and novice teachers performed similar practices in areas such as the emotional climate of the classroom, classroom rules and instructional support. In addition, it was found that there were differences in the approaches of the novice teachers and experienced teachers regarding the noisy classroom as well as in the way they defined and intervened problematic behaviors.

Speech recognition with a hearing-aid processing scheme combining beamforming with mask-informed speech enhancement.

A signal processing approach combining beamforming with mask-informed speech enhancement was assessed by measuring sentence recognition in listeners with mild-to-moderate hearing impairment in adverse listening conditions that simulated the output of behind-the-ear hearing aids in a noisy classroom. Two types of beamforming were compared: binaural, with the two microphones of each aid treated as a single array, and bilateral, where independent left and right beamformers were derived. Binaural beamforming produces a narrower beam, maximising improvement in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), but eliminates the spatial diversity that is preserved in bilateral beamforming. Each beamformer type was optimised for the true target position and implemented with and without additional speech enhancement in which spectral features extracted from the beamformer output were passed to a deep neural network trained to identify time-frequency regions dominated by target speech. Additional conditions comprising binaural beamforming combined with speech enhancement implemented using Wiener filtering or modulation-domain Kalman filtering were tested in normally-hearing (NH) listeners. Both beamformer types gave substantial improvements relative to no processing, with significantly greater benefit for binaural beamforming. Performance with additional mask-informed enhancement was poorer than with beamforming alone, for both beamformer types and both listener groups. In NH listeners the addition of mask-informed enhancement produced significantly poorer performance than both other forms of enhancement, neither of which differed from the beamformer alone. In summary, the additional improvement in SNR provided by binaural beamforming appeared to outweigh loss of spatial information, while speech understanding was not further improved by the mask-informed enhancement method implemented here.

How Reliable are 11- to 13-Year-Olds’ Self-Ratings of Effort in Noisy Conditions?

Performing a task in noisy conditions is effortful. This is especially relevant for children in classrooms as the effort involved could impair their learning and academic achievements. Numerous studies have investigated how to use behavioral and physiological methods to measure effort, but limited data are available on how well school-aged children rate effort in their classrooms. This study examines whether and how self-ratings can be used to describe the effort children perceive while working in a noisy classroom. This is done by assessing the effect of listening condition on self-rated effort in a group of 182 children 11–13 years old. The children performed three tasks typical of daily classroom activities (speech perception, sentence comprehension, and mental calculation) in three listening conditions (quiet, traffic noise, and classroom noise). After completing each task, they rated their perceived task-related effort on a five-point scale. Their task accuracy and response times (RTs) were recorded (the latter as a behavioral measure of task-related effort). Participants scored higher (more effort) on their self-ratings in the noisy conditions than in quiet. Their self-ratings were also sensitive to the type of background noise, but only for the speech perception task, suggesting that children might not be fully aware of the disruptive effect of background noise. A repeated-measures correlation analysis was run to explore the possible relationship between the three study outcomes (accuracy, self-ratings, and RTs). Self-ratings correlated with accuracy (in all tasks) and with RTs (only in the speech perception task), suggesting that the relationship between different measures of listening effort might depend on the task. Overall, the present findings indicate that self-reports could be useful for measuring changes in school-aged children’s perceived listening effort. More research is needed to better understand, and consequently manage, the individual factors that might affect children’s self-ratings (e.g., motivation) and to devise an appropriate response format.

An Exploration of Implementation Enablers and Barriers for Norwegian School Meal Guidelines

School meal guidelines can be important tools to promote children’s diets, but their implementation depends on several influencing factors. Understanding these is important for designing effective interventions to increase implementation. The aim of this study was to examine barriers to and enablers of implementation of the Norwegian national guideline on food and meals in schools by applying a school-based implementation framework to data collection and analysis. The Multi-level Quality Implementation Framework (MQIF) was used to develop semi-structured interview guides. At four schools, principals and after-school leaders were interviewed individually, whereas teachers (n = 27) and children (n = 26) participated in separate focus group interviews. The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed deductively according to predefined constructs in the MQIF. Most implementation barriers and enablers were identified at the school level and barriers dominated. Important barriers included a weak mandate to prioritize work on school meals; weak administrative leadership; the lack of a school culture around meal practices; a noisy classroom climate undermining social meals; limited facilities; and difficulties with the teacher–parent collaboration around packed lunches. Important enablers were engagement by the education authorities; coordinated action at a municipal level; whole-school discussions on meal practices; and teachers’ facilitation for social meals. The MQIF successfully guided us in identifying factors that influence school meal guideline implementation. Low priority of school meals and low implementation authority appeared as underlying reasons for some implementation barriers. The study indicates that, to overcome these barriers, schools need support for implementation.

Strategies to Cope With Students’ Discipline Problems in Senior High School

The article deals with the strategies implemented by teachers in facilitating the students to comply with the rules. The study aims at identifying the discipline problems faced by teachers and describing the strategies they employ to cope with the discipline problems. The study employed qualitative approach in which the researchers used questionnaire and interview to collect the data. The participants were high school teachers and students of 10 schools in Central Java, Indonesia from various backgrounds: public, private, Islam-based public, Islam-affiliated private, Islam-based dormitory. The interview script became the primary source for interpreting and analyzing data. The findings revealed that the most common discipline problems faced by the teachers were noisy classroom, wrong/incomplete attributes and unpunctuality. The strategies applied by the teachers to cope with the students were corrective, assertive, and preventive disciplines. The teachers should improve the quality in maintaining the classroom discipline by creating a conducive classroom and involving the students in setting the classroom rules, such as attendance, learning participation, students and teacher actions, and assessment.

Listening to a Dysphonic Speaker in Noise May Impede Children's Spoken Language Processing in a Realistic Classroom Setting.

Purpose The aim of this study was to investigate children's processing of dysphonic speech in a realistic classroom setting, under the influence of added classroom noise. Method Typically developing 6-year-old primary school children performed two listening tasks in their regular classrooms: a phoneme discrimination task to assess speech perception and a sentence-picture matching task to assess listening comprehension. Speech stimuli were played back in either a typical or an impaired voice quality. Children performed the tasks in the presence of induced classroom noise at signal-to-noise ratios between +2 and +9 dB. Results Children's performance in the phoneme discrimination task decreased significantly when the speaker's voice was impaired. The effect of voice quality on sentence-picture matching depended on task demands: Easy sentences were processed more accurately in the impaired-voice condition than in the typical-voice condition. Signal-to-noise ratio effects are discussed in light of methodological constraints. Conclusions Listening to a dysphonic teacher in a noisy classroom may impede children's perception of speech, particularly when phonological discrimination is needed to disambiguate the speech input. Future research regarding the interaction of voice quality and task demands is necessary.

GIS-Based Area Suitability Analysis for Development Planning Purposes Campus: Case Study Banyuwangi State Polytechnic

In the context of the ecological relationship between humans and the academic environment, success in obtaining high-quality graduations influenced by the quality of the building's space system and other supporting facilities as a place for students to study. So the construction site's design becomes an essential factor to consider in the educational environment. Banyuwangi state polytechnic has not implemented and developed SIG to determine the construction site. Hence, it causes campus spatial planning problems for the future, like puddles, floods, noisy classrooms, and difficult access to each building. Banyuwangi State Polytechnic, as a twelve-year-old college in Banyuwangi, is in desperate need of regional development planning as one of the efforts to ensure the continuity of academic activities that are adequate and comfortable for students. This study aims to ?nd out the area suitability for determining Banyuwangi State Polytechnic development's best location choice. Banyuwangi State Polytechnic, located in the middle of the public road on the east side and the railway in the west to the north, causes noise levels to be a critical issue to consider to achieve a fair learning process. Area suitability assessment is a critical determinant in campus planning development. The suitability assessment is carried out through the AHP (analytical hierarchy process) model covering all land, buildings, noise levels, soil slope, road access, and availability of irrigation channels. The data obtained mapped into the Geographic Information System using Quantum GIS (QGIS) software. Land-use suitability is calculated based on criteria in the form of noise level (NL), land elevation (EL), ease of access (RA), and irrigation channel (ICA). There are 4 points obtained after discussions with the development planning unit management for alternative locations for development sites. The highest weight of the best criteria for determining location is the NL criteria of 0.566 and PSI of 0.283. The best location for development is in the second alternative location with a weight of 0,20176, followed by the third alternative location with a weight of 0,12028.

Learning in Noisy Classrooms: Children’s Reports of Annoyance and Distraction from Noise are Associated with Individual Differences in Mind-Wandering and Switching skills

Classrooms are noisy, yet little is known about pupils’ subjective reactions to noise. We surveyed 112 children between 8.70 and 11.38 years of age and extracted five dimensions in their reactions to noise by factorial analyses: (1) perceived classroom loudness, (2) hearing difficulties, (3) attention capture, (4) interference, (5) annoyance from noise. Structural Equation Models were run to better understand interindividual differences in noise interference and annoyance. Children reporting hearing and switching difficulties experienced more interference and annoyance from noise. Children who had a greater propensity for mind-wandering also experienced more interference from noise, but were annoyed by noise only to the extent that it produced interference—the relationship between mind-wandering and noise annoyance was indirect, and not direct, as was the case for reported hearing and switching difficulties. We suggest that the distinction between annoyance and interference has theoretical, empirical, and practical relevance for educational research.

Rerouting Hearing Aid Systems for Overcoming Simulated Unilateral Hearing in Dynamic Listening Situations.

Unilateral hearing loss increases the risk of academic and behavioral challenges for school-aged children. Previous research suggests that remote microphone (RM) systems offer the most consistent benefits for children with unilateral hearing loss in classroom environments relative to other nonsurgical interventions. However, generalizability of previous laboratory work is limited because of the specific listening situations evaluated, which often included speech and noise signals originating from the side. In addition, early studies focused on speech recognition tasks requiring limited cognitive engagement. However, those laboratory conditions do not reflect characteristics of contemporary classrooms, which are cognitively demanding and typically include multiple talkers of interest in relatively diffuse background noise. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential effects of rerouting amplification systems, specifically a RM system and a contralateral routing of signal (CROS) system, on speech recognition and comprehension of school-age children in a laboratory environment designed to emulate the dynamic characteristics of contemporary classrooms. It was expected that listeners would benefit from the CROS system when the head shadow limits audibility (e.g., monaural indirect listening). It was also expected that listeners would benefit from the RM system only when the RM was near the talker of interest. Twenty-one children (10 to 14 years, M = 11.86) with normal hearing participated in laboratory tests of speech recognition and comprehension. Unilateral hearing loss was simulated by presenting speech-shaped masking noise to one ear via an insert earphone. Speech stimuli were presented from 1 of 4 loudspeakers located at either 0°, +45°, -90°, and -135° or 0°, -45°, +90°, and +135°. Cafeteria noise was presented from separate loudspeakers surrounding the listener. Participants repeated sentences (sentence recognition) and also answered questions after listening to an unfamiliar story (comprehension). They were tested unaided, with a RM system (microphone near the front loudspeaker), and with a CROS system (ear-level microphone on the ear with simulated hearing loss). Relative to unaided listening, both rerouting systems reduced sentence recognition performance for most signals originating near the ear with normal hearing (monaural direct loudspeakers). Only the RM system improved speech recognition for midline signals, which were near the RM. Only the CROS system significantly improved speech recognition for signals originating near the ear with simulated hearing loss (monaural indirect loudspeakers). Although the benefits were generally small (approximately 6.5 percentage points), the CROS system also improved comprehension scores, which reflect overall listening across all four loudspeakers. Conversely, the RM system did not improve comprehension scores relative to unaided listening. Benefits of the CROS system in this study were small, specific to situations where speech is directed toward the ear with hearing loss, and relative only to a RM system utilizing one microphone. Although future study is warranted to evaluate the generalizability of the findings, the data demonstrate both CROS and RM systems are nonsurgical interventions that have the potential to improve speech recognition and comprehension for children with limited useable unilateral hearing in dynamic, noisy classroom situations.

Academic Performance, Communication, and Psychosocial Development of Prelingual Deaf Children with Cochlear Implants in Mainstream Schools.

Background and ObjectivesTo assess the academic performance, communication skills, and psychosocial development of prelingual deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) attending mainstream schools, and to evaluate the impact of auditory speech perception on their classroom performance.Subjects and MethodsAs participant, 67 children with CI attending mainstream schools were included. A survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire on academic performance in the native language, second language, mathematics, social studies, science, art, communication skills, self-esteem, and social relations. Additionally, auditory and speech performances on the last follow-up were reviewed retrospectively.ResultsMost implanted children attending mainstream school appeared to have positive self-esteem and confidence, and had little difficulty in conversing in a quiet classroom. Also, half of the implanted children (38/67) scored above average in general academic achievement. However, academic achievement in the second language (English), social studies, and science were usually poorer than general academic achievement. Furthermore, half of the implanted children had difficulty in understanding the class content (30/67) or conversing with peers in a noisy classroom (32/67). These difficulties were significantly associated with poor speech perception.ConclusionsImproving the listening environment for implanted children attending mainstream schools is necessary.

College Academic Stress: Getting by, Muddling Through

Academic stress challenges students’ ability to cope up and strategize. In the University, manifestation of moderate stress along academic endeavors among future teachers should not be disregarded as when this becomes critical. It will burden their academic journey and personal lives. Using descriptive research design employing descriptive and inferential statistics, the study unveiled that students are severely stressed along financial-related matters, which calls for their capacity to budget allowance, deal with unexpected expenses and save money for requirements. Submitting requirements, dealing with strict teachers, bearing with noisy classrooms, transferring from one building to the other and worrying about future cause them severe stress but they are not stressed at attending classes. Coping styles are often used by students to manage stress. Thinking of the brighter side of life and trying to rediscover the most important things in life are indications of optimism among students. Year level, among other profile variables, significantly influences the students’ academic stress levels. Sophomores were significantly more stressed than the seniors. Though relationship between academic stress and coping styles was not significantly established, it is quite essential that students are taught on coping mechanisms, so they have defense against stress. Keywords : college academic stress, getting by/muddling through, coping styles/strategies, stress levels, future secondary school teachers

Analysis of shyness on vocal handicap perceived in school teachers.

To verify the relation between the self-reported shyness and perceived vocal handicap in teachers from Early childhood and Primary education (elementary and middle school). 200 teachers (mean age 41.8 years old) without vocal complaint answered to personal identification protocol, work characterization information, the Vocal Handcap Index and the Shyness Scale. From the total sample, 142 (71%) teachers had no vocal disadvantage, 42% (n = 59) were shy and 58% (n = 83) were non-shy. Among the 58 (29%) teachers with vocal disadvantage, most of them were shy (64%) instead of non-shy (26%). Considering the shy teachers, most of them worked in Early Childhood Education, were aged between 20-30 years old, had from 1 to 10 years of teaching experience and were working in a noisy classroom. The presence of upper airway affections was more frequent in shy teachers without vocal disadvantage and this was the only aspect that differentiated shy and non-shy teachers. Shy teachers showed higher frequency of vocal disadvantage when compared to non-shy teachers. Teachers between 20 and 30 years old, with up to 10 years of teaching experience and who teach in Early Childhood Education reported shyness, but there was no relation with vocal disadvantage.

Learning and interacting in noisy classrooms: what background noise measures and subjective teacher perceptions tell us about the challenges for students who are hard of hearing

The negative impact of noisy classrooms can impede academic performance for even typically hearing children. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the impact of noisy classrooms on the social and academic experiences of deaf and hard-of-hearing students, who are increasingly educated alongside their hearing peers. First, background noise levels were measured in 11 kindergarten-Grade 7 classrooms in which children with hearing loss were placed, during the first 1½ hours of one school day. Based on the ongoing activities and background noise levels, predictions were made as to when the children would likely experience the most and least adverse listening conditions. Second, teachers were interviewed to obtain their perspectives of the learning and socialization experiences of the children with hearing loss. Overall, there was striking consistency between the predicted difficulties based on objective acoustic measures and perceived difficulties based on teachers’ subjective perspectives. Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed the following major themes concerning the students with hearing loss: difficulty hearing instruction; missing out on social communication with peers; and difficulty recognizing and managing transitions. Overall, these findings suggest that background noise in elementary school classrooms negatively impacts listening, learning, and social interaction for students with hearing loss.