A Study of the Influence of Learning Spaces to Secondary Students

Abstract

Learning spaces have been observed to have influenced students’ comfort and enhanced school performance. Several learning environments (school spaces) such as lesson time, comfort, arrangement of the space, emotional and physical safety, well-being, and technology use at school, and its underlying factors were determined on how it affects the learnings of secondary students, which was the focus of the study. A self-assessment tool by the OECD Learning Environments Evaluation Programme (LEEP), which generated the effective use of learning spaces in the school, supported 21st-century teaching and learning practices, and monitored the implementation of the sustainable development goal on the quality of the physical learning environment was used. Results showed that the nature of the three top school spaces; traditional classroom (59.99%), library (59.05%), and a canteen (59.04%); affecting learning were towards group work or engagements and collaborative learning  with definite purpose. The learning environment that affects students’ learning were psychological factors such as the choice of the workplace and movement around it, presence of a favorite subject and the chance to collaborate with other students; and the environmental factors, such as  the physical appearance of the room like the color, temperature, well-equipped area and comfortable furniture. More than 75% of the students responded that the factors on the learning environment that helps them learn best were when they can see the outside’s space (76.92%);  and free choice of workplace area (75.00%). The least factor, although more than half, in learning spaces that affects students' learning was along the comfort of the furniture (57.69%).