The Role of Acoustics in the Perceived Suitability of, and Well-Being in, Informal Learning Spaces
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Post-secondary institutions require appropriately designed informal learning spaces (ILSs) outside of classrooms for studying and group-work activities, but few studies have investigated how these spaces perform, especially in terms of acoustics. We measured objective acoustical characteristics and architectural features in 23 such spaces, and captured environmental assessments and well-being outcomes from a survey of 850 student occupants. Objective measures indicated that sound levels generated by occupants and other sound sources tended to exceed maximum values recommended by standards. Some components of perceived suitability and well-being were greater in spaces with lower background sound levels (e.g., from ventilation systems), but with more occupant-generated sound, and more reverberation. Furthermore, some design features such as more vegetation, the presence of soft furnishings, and lower seating density predicted some components of perceived suitability and well-being. This evaluation of ILSs offers lessons for designers and suggests additional directions for further study.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".