School students have always had a myriad of reasons for not performing well on exams, aside from simply not working hard enough. Nervousness, lack of sleep, feeling unwell, and more are commonly cited factors. Now, a study in Australia has found a correlation between high ceilings in exam halls and poorer exam scores. This suggests yet another reason for students’ subpar performance.
The research, conducted jointly by the University of South Australia and Deakin University, reveals that the design of a building can impact students’ exam performance. When students take exams in large spaces like gymnasiums with high ceilings, they have difficulty focusing, leading to lower exam scores.
In this study, environmental psychologist Isabella Bower from the University of South Australia and her team analyzed data from three campuses of an Australian university, covering exam scores of 15,400 students from 2011 to 2019.
They compared the exam scores of these students with the height of the ceilings in the exam halls. After considering individual differences among students and their previous performance on course assignments, they found that students scored lower than expected when taking exams in rooms with high ceilings.
Factors such as students’ age, gender, exam timing within the academic year, and their prior experience with exams in these courses were all taken into account by the researchers.
Bower mentioned that it’s challenging to determine whether these results are influenced by the exam halls themselves or other factors such as student density, poor insulation in the building leading to temperature and air quality fluctuations – all of which can affect the body and brain.
She stated, “These spaces are typically designed for purposes other than exams, such as sports, exhibitions, events, and performances.”
“Crucially, large rooms with high ceilings seem to disadvantage students, and we need to understand which brain mechanisms are at play and whether this impact is uniform across all students,” she added.
These research findings support another study previously conducted by Bower. In that earlier study, researchers utilized brain mapping technology and virtual reality in experiments and found a correlation between individuals’ perception of surrounding space size and their cognitive performance.
Jaclyn Broadbent, associate professor at Deakin University, highlighted that exams have been a crucial part of the education system for centuries, shaping students’ career paths and lives.
She pointed out that many universities and schools use large indoor spaces for exams to streamline logistics and costs. Understanding the potential impact of the physical environment on student performance and making necessary adjustments to ensure all students have equal opportunities for success is highly important.
“These findings will allow us to better design the buildings we rely on for living and working so that we can maximize our capabilities,” Broadbent remarked.
The above research results were published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.