The effects of physical environmental factors on students' perceptions in computer classrooms

The environmental setting has a direct impact on perception, comfort, motivation, and concentration in learning environments. Accordingly, in computer classrooms, technological equipment and classroom settings can enhance psychological comfort and the learning environment. With this in mind, seemingly subtle differences in interior design/layout, as opposed to the larger matters of architectural design and floor-plan, were assumed to influence the perceptual performance of design students. To verify this hypothesis, the atmospheric attributes of two computer classrooms used to teach 3Dmax and AutoCAD drawing programs at the Department of Furniture and Decoration of Technical Education Faculty at Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey, were tested by eliciting responses to ten bipolar semantic differential items on a Likert-style scale. Results showed that differences in the environmental settings of each classroom had an important influence on the perceptual evaluations of students. Factors such as proximity/distance of pieces of equipment to one another, roominess/crowdedness in terms of the placement of the PC boxes, the presence of paintings and plants, and attention to circulation and sightlines, were observed to have an effect on whether student participants perceived a space positively or negatively. These results imply that preparing an optimal environment would encourage a good relationship between the student and his or her environment, thereby encouraging more productive learning and better motivation and concentration.