| dc.description.abstract | Abstract
With the increasing costs in higher education and concerns regarding student retention and graduation rates, there has been an increased focus on innovative instructional methodologies and new templates for learning space designs. Schools are educational facilities that play an essential role in community building and education, and immediate attention is needed to improve classroom spaces. Unfortunately, schools have not facilitated changing educational standards and still follow old philosophies (Altinbasak, 2016; Baker, 2012). Even though there has been a worldwide transformation in the teaching and learning process, the US still follows the traditional classroom setting, no matter the instructors’ instructional approach (Altinbasak, 2016). Research has become integral to the overall design process to provide better design solutions. Credible design research is a crucial part of the profession, uplifting and strengthening designers’ credibility (Friedow, 2012) while providing improved client and consumer satisfaction.
The primary purpose of the current study is to better aid interior designers in educational environment designs, such as higher education classroom settings, and to add to empirical knowledge about design and behavior, with the applied aspect influencing future learning spaces’ design. Therefore, the intent was to evaluate the existing higher education learning spaces from the perspective of one of the primary users of the space, such as instructors, because teaching is perhaps the most essential variable for the “improvement in the quality of education (Manville, 2004, p. 2).” There are numerous studies on classroom design from students’ perspectives, but more from instructors’ point of view still needs to be known. Since the learning space’s physical design influences instructors’ instructional methodologies, special attention has been given to furniture arrangement, furnishing, and equipment of the classrooms for the overall academic performance and related behaviors (Steg & Reser, 2011). There is a hypothesized association between the classroom design and the instructors’ instructional methodology.
Through the explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, the current research strived to examine the role of physical design attributes of traditional and active learning classroom designs on instructors’ instructional methodologies. This mixed-methods research used two data collection methods: a survey and follow-up interviews to examine design-instructional methods in a triangulated fashion.
Data analysis revealed an association between classroom design and instructors’ instructional approach. Contrary to previous literature, the quantitative data did not reveal a statistically significant difference between the traditional and active learning classroom designs regarding instructors’ perceptions and values. However, findings from the qualitative data analysis revealed that there is a significant difference.
The emphasis of this academic environment’s post-occupancy evaluations was to assess user needs, experience, and values concerning these environments’ physical attributes. Results indicate that the instructors perceive active learning classroom designs as supportive of their instructional methodologies compared to traditional classrooms. Thus, the information collected from the POE of educational settings informed planning, design, and pedagogical practices throughout the whole evaluation process.
Keywords: Classroom design, active learning classroom design, faculty perception, built-environment and human behavior. | en_US |
