The effect of a reduced reverberation time on students’ perceived comfort and performance in higher education classrooms:a between-groups experiment

The Dutch government's "Fresh Schools" program aims to improve indoor environmental quality in schools by setting requirements for school buildings. School management must choose an indoor environment quality class (A, B, or C). This study examines the impact of different reverberation times (RT) on students' perceptions and academic performance. A field study with a between-groups experimental design was conducted during a regular academic course. The intervention condition had an RT of 0.4 s (class A), while the control condition had an RT of 0.6 s (class B). Students' perceptions of acoustic comfort, cognitive performance, and learning quality were measured using questionnaires. Their short-term academic performance was evaluated with a content-related test. Results from 194 responses showed that students in the intervention condition, compared to those in the control condition, reported higher alertness, concentration, and writing ability. However, they did not score better on an academic test.