Classroom Acoustics – a New Zealand Perspective Author : G. Dodd, et al

WHAT IS THIS DOCUMENT ABOUT? : New Zealand primary school classroom types have been investigated for how well their acoustics support NZ teaching styles which use little teacher-at-the-board type of instruction. When rooms were modified to lower their reverberation time (RT) this raised teacher-ratings of the rooms from poor to good. Pupil speech perception scores did not show a marked change but activity noise levels were reduced significantly. Current research is addressing the measurement of S/N ratio in in-use rooms, the rating of floors for contact-generated noise, and a novel speech reception test. 120 teachers in 7 Auckland schools were surveyed for their judgements of the success of the various classrooms they use, and their judgements were correlated with major design features of the rooms. In addition the teachers provided information about sources of noise and how they impacted on them and their teaching. Based on the survey results 6 highly-rated rooms and 6 rooms with poor ratings were identified for detailed study. Data collected included MLS-measured impulse responses (from which standard acoustical parameters were derived), recordings of classroom sound during a full-day of use, and speech reception tests.

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