Research from the University of South Australia and Deakin University has found a link between rooms with high ceilings and poorer examination results.
Their study, published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, says building design affects our ability to perform tasks. The researchers analyzed data from 15,400 undergraduate students across three campuses at an Australian university between 2011 and 2019, comparing their exam results based on the height of the examination room's ceiling.
The results showed that students received lower scores than expected when sitting tests in rooms with elevated ceilings.
Isabella Bower, who led the study, said it is difficult to identify whether this is due to the scale of the room itself or factors such as student density and poor insulation—which cause temperature and air quality fluctuations. These factors can all affect the brain and body.
"These spaces are often designed for purposes other than examinations, such as gymnasiums, exhibitions, events and performances," Bower said in a news release.
"The key point is that large rooms with high ceilings seem to disadvantage students and we need to understand what brain mechanisms are at play, and whether this affects all students to the same degree," she continued.
The results support experiments that Bower has done using virtual reality, measuring brain activity of participants exposed to different rooms while controlling for other factors, such as temperature, lighting and noise.
Using a technique called electroencephalography, where electrodes are attached to the scalp to measure brain cell communication, her team altered room sizes and recorded the brain's response.
The researchers also measured heart rate, breathing and perspiration to find if someone could unconsciously detect a change in the environment.
In these VR experiments, they found that simply sitting in a larger room resulted in brain activity associated with concentrating on a difficult task. This led them to question whether task performance in large spaces is reduced.
"Based on these results we were curious to apply our lab findings to a real-world dataset and see if being in a large space like a gymnasium while having to concentrate on an important task would result in a poorer performance," Bower said.
"Examinations have been a key part of our education system for over 1,300 years, shaping students' career paths and lives," said Jaclyn Broadbent, an associate professor at Deakin University and a researcher on the study.
"In Australia, many universities and schools use large indoor spaces for exams to streamline logistics and costs. It's crucial to recognize the potential impact of the physical environment on student performance and make necessary adjustments to ensure all students have an equal opportunity to succeed," she continued.
"These findings will allow us to better design the buildings in which we live and work, so we can perform to the best of our ability," Broadbent said.
The researchers factored in the profiled students' age and sex, the time of year they sat the examination, and whether they had prior exam experience in the courses investigated.
About the writer
Isabel Cameron is a Science Reporter at Newsweek, based in London, U.K. She has covered a range of health topics ... Read more
