Effects of room temperature on academic performance and efficiency

How work efficiency at work and academic performance at school affects by room temperature?

There have been many reports of cases in which students collapse due to heatstroke within the school, and it is required not only to review the school system but also to install air conditioning. In fact, air conditioning not only affects the health of students but also greatly affects their grades and work efficiency.  Many studies have been done on the optimum temperature of the office air conditioner. The study has been conducted to observe the effects of room temperature on academic performance.

The recommended room temperature is 28 ° C when the air conditioner is set. However, according to a recommendation a temperature of 28 ° C is the upper limit of the indoor.  According to a survey conducted on 1000 employees, 28.2% of offices actually set the temperature to 28 ℃, 16.6% at 27 ℃ and 18.4% at 26 ℃. % And the current setting is that 28 ° C is the highest. According to a study conducted on 105 employees,  that actually set the air-conditioning the temperature of the target office to 28 ° C and conducted a work environment evaluation questionnaire when 105 employees were leaving the work, The rate of dissatisfaction exceeds 70%, and the result is that the higher the room temperature, the higher the rate of increase in fatigue. On the other hand, if the degree of satisfaction is high, the subjective workability is high and the degree of fatigue is low in controlled room temperature. The work efficiency decreases as the room temperature increases when the ambient temperature is 25 ° C or higher, and the maximum temperature at which productivity does not the decrease is 25 to 26 ° C, 21 to 25 ° C. There is also a research result that an increase in room temperature of 1 ° C corresponds to a decrease in productivity of about 2% at 25 ° C or higher [1] In addition, the economic impact of changes in power consumption for air conditioning by lowering the room temperature is far smaller than the economic impact of changes in work efficiency. It may be necessary to lower it.

Furthermore, not only the office buildings but also the thermal environment in schools are becoming a problem. In summer, the desired temperature of the classroom in the school should be maintained around 24℃ as per the BEE guidelines to save the electricity and also to maintain a healthy environment in the school. In recent years, there have been fatal accidents due to heatstroke in schools, and it can be said that the improvement of the thermal the environment at the educational site is an urgent issue.

There is a study [2] that points out that the thermal the environment in educational settings also affects learning effects and grades. According to the study, a short-term analysis shows that when the outdoor temperature exceeds 22 ° C, mathematical grades decrease to 26 ° C. It is said that the cognitive ability of mathematics decreases significantly when the value exceeds.In addition, by linking local daily weather data with the test scores of American high school students who have repeatedly taken the PSAT test from 2001 to 2014, the effects of cumulative heat exposure that air-conditioning installation in schools impedes cognitive development There is a report [3] showing that this can be reduced. According to this report.

• For students in schools without air conditioning, the standard deviation decreases by 0.01026 when the temperature rises by 1 ° C.

• Air conditioning reduces the impact of heat on learning by 73%.

Summary

With the widespread reporting of heatstroke damage to students, the need for air conditioning has begun to be recognized for health reasons. However, actually, from the aspect of academic efficiency and labor efficiency, while the impact of room temperature and cooling that controls room temperature has a large impact, the room temperature standard set by the government is insufficient. Therefore, the administration should change the desired room temperature to 26 ° C or below and promote the installation of air conditioners in elementary and junior high schools.

Reference

[1] Seppanen, Olli Fisk, William J. Faulkner, David (2003), Cost benefit analysis of the night-time ventilative cooling in office building, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

[2] Joshua S. Graff Zivin, Solomon M. Hsiang, and Matthew J. Neidell (2015), Temperature and Human Capital in the Short- and Long-Run, NBER Working Paper No. 2115

[3] Joshua Goodman Michael Hurwitz Jisung Park Jonathan Smith (2018), Heat and Learning, Faculty Research Working Paper Series