Education is an environment that uses sound as the main communication tool. But the sound quality is almost ignored. Poor acoustics in a classroom can have a negative impact on the learning and teaching process.
Reduce students’ ability to concentrate and acquisition
Research has shown that this effect can reduce students’ ability to absorb, cause distraction during class hours. The cost to improve the quality of the acoustic environment is negligible compared to the loss caused by the above negative effects. In addition to the initial construction costs, we always need a budget dedicated to acoustics as they provide immediate and long-term benefits to the students.
Teachers and students can ignore acoustic obstacles that affect learning outcomes. However, children and adults perceive speech understanding differently, and adults’ perception of speech intelligibility may be better than children’s. Therefore, the experience of adults in this area cannot be used to assess the experience and understanding of children and young students.
Children under 13 are still developing their ability to recognize and understand words. Speech intelligibility is significantly reduced in a space with high levels of noise, background noise, and long reverberation times.
What are the requirements for the acoustic design of the classroom?
- Voice needs to be louder than noise, background noise at least 15 dB
- Noise level is less than 40 dBA when there is no person
- Overall acoustic noise level (including teaching voices and student voices) is no more than 65-70 dBA in the whole room
- The sound absorption system reduces the reverberation to less than 0.4 seconds in the teaching space, requiring at least 40% absorption treatment on the ceiling.
- Speech transmission index STI > 0.6
- In the case of students with special listening requirements: Duration 0.4 seconds or less, Signal-to-noise ratio greater than 20dB
Sound absorption treatment for classrooms
Frequency range of children’s voices from 250 – 3000Hz
The acoustical processing system needs to be able to absorb evenly over a wide frequency range, otherwise, an imbalance of sustain between audio frequency ranges will impair speech intelligibility. The physics of sound indicates that the simple absorbent materials currently used in schools cannot provide the level of absorption required for the teaching space. These materials only have the benefit of absorbing high frequency sound.
Each room has different functions, so it is necessary to have a different acoustic design to best suit the function of use, to avoid wasting money in vain. For example: Music room, gymnasium, handicraft room, kindergarten room, library
Music room
Book the music room away from the common room and other quiet rooms. Ceiling design to a minimum height of 4m, the better the sound quality the higher the ceiling. Install quiet ventilation. Make sure walls, ceilings, floors, doors and windows are properly designed for effective soundproofing control.
Due to the complexity of room acoustics design, iSS Acoustics recommends consulting with a sound expert at the earliest stages of the design process.
