The effect of classroom size, shape and crowdedness on user perceptual assessments

This study explored the effect of the different sizes, floor-plan geometries (square or rectangular) and crowdedness of two classrooms on users' perceptual assessments of the spaces. Two classrooms of the Ankara In-service Training Institute were employed as a research environment and a Likert-style semantic-differential scale consisting of 15 polar adjective pairs elicited users' assessments of each space. The two classrooms were found to be perceived differently by the users, despite having otherwise similar characteristics, A classroom having greater area, a square shape and proportionately less furniture was more positively perceived than a classroom having smaller area, a rectangular shape and proportionately more furniture. © IDOSI Publications, 2011.