Classroom physical design and the use of digital technologies: an exploratory observational study across educational stages

The integration of digital technologies (DT) in education has become a priority for education systems, yet the mere availability of devices does not guarantee their use in the classroom. This exploratory study analyzes the relationship between classroom physical design and the use of digital technologies in real educational practices, drawing on the Pedagogy-Space-Technology (PST) framework, and additionally examines whether the type of session is associated with differences in technology use. A quantitative, cross-sectional observational study was conducted through direct observation of 121 classrooms in Spain and Andorra, from early childhood to higher education. Because classrooms across these stages are not comparable units, analyses were disaggregated into three blocks, with 83 classrooms providing valid technology-use data: early childhood and primary ( n = 21), secondary and vocational ( n = 33), and higher education ( n = 29). Associations between furniture flexibility, physical environment, spatial organization and technology use were tested with Kendall's tau-b, with Benjamini–Hochberg adjustment within blocks, and differences by session type with the Kruskal–Wallis test. The pattern of associations differed across blocks. In early childhood and primary education, only the quality of the physical environment was associated with technology use ( τ = 0.673). In secondary and vocational education, no association reached significance. In higher education, four features were associated with technology use, led by furniture flexibility ( τ = 0.591) and the organization of space for learning by doing ( τ = 0.462), which were uncorrelated with each other. No differences in technology use were observed by session type. The spatial provision that accompanied technology use differed by stage: environmental quality in early childhood and primary education, specialized computer rooms in secondary and vocational education, and reconfigurable rooms or workshops in higher education. The Pedagogy–Space–Technology framework does not specify how the relationship between space and technology changes across educational stages. This study offers a stage-specific account of that relationship as a hypothesis for further research and as a basis for pairing equipment policies with stage-specific decisions on classroom design. The design is cross-sectional and the spatial items are exploratory, so no causal claims are made.