My name is Laoise Broderick, I am 23 years old and from Dublin. I am soon to be a graduate of IADT BSc in Applied Psychology. My knowledge, passion and interest for psychology has grown greatly throughout my four years of the course. My specific areas of interest are developmental, social, and educational psychology. Currently and throughout fourth year, I worked part-time in Saint John of God services, providing support for adults with intellectual disabilities. In the future after I complete post-graduate studies, I hope to pursue a career working with children and individuals with disabilities.
Third level students all over the world spend a large quantity of their time in various different classroom environments. Attributes within each room can differ depending on different kinds of room types. These can contribute to each students’ satisfaction with a space or impact on their performance. Within Ireland there is little research surrounding this topic, specifically regarding students who are in third level educational settings. Therefore, this project investigated three different room types: interactive classrooms, tiered lecture halls and flat classrooms. The focus was if students’ satisfaction with their classroom’s attributes differed depending on the room type, and if classroom attributes impacted students’ performance depending on the room type. A total of 143 students participated. Three different room types were investigated: interactive classrooms, tiered lecture halls and flat classrooms.
This project aimed to investigate if 1) students’ satisfaction with their classrooms attributes differed depending on the room type and 2) if classroom attributes impacted students’ performance depending on the room type. Hypothesis stated that there would be a difference in students’ satisfaction with classroom attributes based on the room type and that there would also be a difference on classroom attributes impact on students’ performance based on the room type. The project aimed to address the following two research questions: 1) Is there a difference in students’ satisfaction with their classroom attributes depending on the room type? 2) Is there a difference in classroom attributes impacting students’ performance depending on the room type?
The projects findings revealed that there was no statistically significant difference between student’s satisfaction with their classroom’s attributes depending on room type. Although classrooms attributes impact on students’ performance did differ significantly based on room type, specifically between the interactive classrooms and flat classrooms. A possible explanation for this may be the absence, presence, or contrast of specific aspects within each attribute, between rooms. For example, most interactive classrooms had a variety of different furniture types and technology access and potential visibility restrictions. Although in contrast, flat classrooms had standard furniture types, no presence of obvious visibility restrictions and no student accessible computers. Additionally, descriptive statistics indicated that students were overall somewhat satisfied with each room type this was shown with use of means tables and figures. The findings may contribute to lead to prioritising students’ experience and the potential addition of students’ input when designing, creating, or changing learning spaces.
An investigation into the impact of classroom attributes on students’ satisfaction and performance between different room types.