Criteria: Large empirical study with over 300 first-grade students with pragmatic implications for considering the effects of noise disturbance and the impact of good acoustics on classroom design.
Key Takeaway: Take note of this insightful study from Italy which underscores the role of good acoustics in promoting well-being among first-grade students. By optimizing reverberation times (between 0.5 and 0.8 seconds) and incorporating sound insulation and noise-absorbing surfaces, you can significantly mitigate noise disturbances, fostering a more conducive learning environment. This approach is particularly important for students with existing well-being challenges, making classroom acoustics a key factor in supporting all students’ academic journeys.
Summation and Insights:
The influence of acoustics and noise disturbance can be stressful or even detrimental factors when it comes to human well-being. In fact, the World Health Organization has noted that high levels of noise in schools can promote irritation, aggressive behavior, headaches, and reduce the capacity for a strong physical or mental performance. As such, this pilot study made it a mission to examine the relationship between acoustics, noise disturbance, and well-being in first grade classrooms across Italy. The study used questionnaires to sample 330 first grade students (age 6 to 7 years) across 20 classrooms in Torino, Italy and chronicled how their sense of self and learning process related to their sound environment.
Though many of us can vividly imagine how noise disturbance might affect first graders in school (or even ourselves) in negative ways, this study highlights some key empirical takeaways for considering acoustics in the classroom. How long a sound reverberates is key to producing good acoustics (GA) or bad acoustics (BA) in a classroom – the higher the reverberation time, the more noises become amplified and the higher the general noise level in the room. The optimal reverberation time in this study was accounted for as between .5 and .8 seconds and accounted for listening and speaking as vital classroom activities. When the children in this study had classrooms with good acoustics, the impact of noise disturbance was less, and they had an overall better sense of well-being.
As such, the research team makes some pragmatic suggestions regarding good acoustics both inside and outside the classroom. Inside the classroom, acoustic design can be accounted for by considering how speakers and content are being delivered across all listening positions. The use of surfaces that absorb noise may also be helpful. Outside the classroom, some key noise disturbances that were noted included adjacent corridor/classroom activity and traffic. The authors of this study believe that designing classrooms that have a focus on sound insulation may be beneficial to students. One other demonstrable finding, related to the authors’ focus on student well-being, was that children who rate themselves as “unhappy” and experience spells of noise disturbance will rate their well-being and satisfaction with their peers as negative at remarkably higher rates than children who rate themselves as “happy.” This suggests that noise disturbances may be a higher exacerbating factor for children whose well-being (for whatever reason) is already at stake.
Year: 2019
Author: Arianna Astolfi, Giuseppina Emma Puglisi, Silvia Murgia, Greta Minelli, Franco Pellerey, Andrea Prato and Tiziana Sacco
Primary Author: Arianna Astolfi
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/applied-acoustics/editorial-board/arianna-astolfi-phd