The Effect of Noise in Open-plan and Enclosed Classrooms on Speech Perception for Normal Hearing and Hearing Impaired Children: A Step towards Creating an Acoustically Friendly Innovative Learning Environment

Abstract

Open-plan classrooms are becoming popular once again in New Zealand (NZ). This is due to the changing trends in education to a more child-centred educational philosophy. However, the effectiveness of open-plan classrooms on children’s learning is controversial. There is also a growing concern about having the large number of children sharing the same area as it can create high noise levels in the classroom. Therefore, it is important to conduct research in NZ to investigate whether modern, open-plan classrooms are acoustically appropriate for children. The Speech-In-Classroom-Noise (SICN) test was developed in this study to assess the effect of modern, open plan classroom noise on speech perception in primary school children. Two primary classrooms in Auckland were selected: an enclosed classroom with 27 children and an open-plan classroom with 94 children. Acoustics during various classroom scenarios were evaluated to develop the SICN test. The SICN test was conducted on 26 children (5.9-9.6 years old). Children were divided into three groups: Group A with 17 typically developing normalhearing children, Group B with 3 cochlear implant (CI) children, and Group C (exclusion group) with 6 children who did not meet the inclusion criteria for Group A for various reasons (e.g. non-native English speaker). The assessment of classroom acoustics revealed that all classrooms exceeded the recommended ambient noise (<35 dBA) and intrusive/background noise levels (<50 dBA). Not surprisingly, classroom signal-to-noise ratios have shown to be too poor for children to have adequate access to speech information from the teacher. The most concerning finding was the high intrusive noise level (75.6 dBA) in the open-plan classroom when adjacent classes were engaged in noisy activities. There was no significant difference in performance between normal hearing children and those in exclusion group. However, the study did find that CI children were more affected by classroom noises than normal hearing children and their speech perception performance was worse in the open-plan classroom than enclosed classroom. Lastly, it was found that high noise levels in the open-plan classroom would require teachers to raise their voice above comfortable level that may lead to vocal problems. Overall, these findings suggest that open-plan classrooms may not be appropriate for all children. It is hoped that the evidence provided can raise the awareness of acoustical challenges that children may face in open-plan classrooms and persuade different professionals to work together to improve acoustic conditions so that speech perception is not compromised in these classrooms.