Bridging the gaps – A mixed methods approach to evaluating novel feedback surveys of children on school buildings

Feedback is critical to improve the sustainability of all buildings. Current post occupancy feedback is not useful for architects and designers and barriers to obtaining post-occupancy data have been well documented. In addition, there are delays in feedback of research conclusions appearing in Continuing Professional Development. Therefore, architects need timely feedback on their own building designs and methods they can use to obtain feedback for themselves. Previously, a literature review and survey of architects were conducted to identify gaps in feedback for school buildings compared to an Integral Sustainable Design (ISD) framework. A suite of ISD comprehensive on-line surveys were developed for various school user groups to target the identified gaps. This paper presents data from testing a novel survey of children in a case study and comparison of some questions to instrument measurement. The results show that the spatial questions with reasons yielded valuable insights. Some qualitative questions will require amendment to yield useful information. Univariate analysis shows that some thermal comfort questions would be suitable as a substitute for instrument measurement whereas lighting questions would not. Conversely, the question on vocal comprehension provided clear responses, supported by instrument measurement. Likert-style questions regarding sense of place, connection to outside, feelings of safety, etc. Were generally successful. Overall, the new ISD children's survey provides useful information for architects to address feedback gaps identified and will continue to improve with lessons from this case study. • Introduces novel surveys of children regarding school design. • Applies a mixed-methods approach to evaluating those surveys. • Identifies successful questions which provide useful information for architects. • Reveals that children understand simple, well-labelled plans of places that they know well. • Provides evidence that children's responses about thermal comfort can be reliable.