STUDENTS � PERCEPTION AND SATISFACTION WITH THERMAL COMFORT IN LECTURE THEATRE

Abstract

This dissertation evaluates students’ thermal comfort in a lecture theatre in NUS School of Design and Environment 3 (SDE 3). Temperature is used as the main determinant to assess students’ thermal comfort perception and satisfaction. The main method used in the study is an occupant thermal comfort survey, which collects students’ thermal perception and satisfaction along with spot measurements of indoor air temperature. The study emphasised on how other factors like the amount of rest, carbon dioxide, clothing type and gender affects students’ thermal perception and satisfaction in each defined temperature category: less than 23ºC, between 23-25ºC, more than 25ºC.

From 15 lecture sessions, a total of 872 responses were obtained. Subjective assessment based on Chi-square test and stacked bar charts revealed that amount of rest, clothing type and gender affected thermal perception at temperature conditions between 23-25ºC and affected thermal satisfaction at less than 23ºC.

However, based on the Generalised Linear Mixed Model (GLMM), it shows that thermal perception is influenced by all the identified factors but thermal satisfaction is only influenced by zone temperature. Overall, it shows that thermal perception is easily affected by variability in other factors. Therefore, it is more appropriate to use thermal satisfaction level of students as the main indicator to assess and improve thermal comfort in lecture theatres.