Holistic research

Gaps and Future Research

Next Steps

The limitations of this white paper are described as “gaps” in the literature review yet are offered as ideas for future research opportunities.

Holistic research

Most of the studies in the literature only examined one or two issues yet impacts on learning does not necessarily occur because of one or two variables. Future research could look at the school environment holistically, studying multiple elements or parameters simultaneously. Very few studies addressed more than one or two items of the Indoor Environmental and Spatial Quality categories of the school and classroom, or how the community and people affect learning. Even recent reviews, like Manca and colleagues (2020), which explores the influences of building/ architectural features, furniture, outdoor spaces, and indoor environmental features on student experience of the school, mostly include studies that investigate one matter at a time.473 Previous reviews have commented on this issue,474–477 arguing that most of the current research fails to understand the total environment of the school. To overcome this, Higgins and colleagues (2007) created a framework where learning is in the center, and is surrounded by four elements (environment, communication, products, and services), where the school as a larger system where different actors and settings interplay.474 A different theoretical framework comes from the literature review developed by Blackmore et. al (2011), where they pair up building life cycle phases, such as design, transition and implementation, consolidation, and sustainability, with how practitioners, learners and spaces interact, moving their attention from the design of the building to the needs of the learner.477 Barrett and colleagues (2015) also studied the influence of multiple parameters on student performance. They developed the Stimulation, Naturalness, and Individualization (SIN) conceptual model and used it in the Holistic Evidence and Design (HEAD) project in schools in the United Kingdom.352, 475 Their study found that the physical characteristics of the classrooms explained 16% in the variation of learning progress in writing, reading, and mathematics over a year. They used the SIN model and found that some subcategories were accounting for most part of the learning performance difference. For Naturalness, the study showed that light, temperature, and air quality accounted for almost 50% of the learning performance difference seen in students. For Individualization, the subcategories of ownership and flexibility accounted for 25% of the performance increase. Finally, for stimulation, accounted for the remaining 25% difference, measured through color and complexity Barrett’s studies also found that classroom design mattered more than whole school factors, in terms of student performance.352, 475