Green Classrooms
A new study indicates increasing student satisfaction and performance may be as simple as adding green plants to university classrooms.
September 11, 2009
Courtesy Science Daily
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Adding green plants to a classroom helps students in more ways than one.
iStockphoto.com/Bernhard Lelle
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In today's frenetic world, many urban dwellers spend more than 80 percent of the day indoors. Bringing nature in to living spaces by enhancing homes and offices with ornamental plants has become another popular facet of the move to "green" our lives. In addition to their aesthetic beauty, indoor plants have been shown to offer psychological and restorative values, such as reduced tension, better coping mechanisms, and increased concentration and attention.
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Researchers have found that the presence of houseplants in homes and workplaces can reduce eye irritation and stress, motivate employees, improve concentration, and even reduce air impurities. Plants appeared to have a positive effect on headaches and fatigue and hoarseness, and employees even reported having less dry skin when plants were introduced to offices. Interior plants have also been shown to increase work productivity; in one study, employees' reaction time on computer tasks improved by 12 percent when plants were present.
Now, scientists are testing the impact of plants on student performance and satisfaction in the classroom. Jennifer S. Doxey and Tina Marie Waliczek from the Department of Agriculture, Texas State University, and Jayne M. Zajicek of the Department of Horticultural Sciences, Texas A&M University, published a study of the impact of plants in university classrooms in a recent issue of HortScience. Their main objective was to investigate the impact of plants in classrooms on course performance and student perceptions of the course and instructor.
The study was designed to include a minimum of two classes of the same coursework taught by the same professor in the same room during one semester. Three sets of two classes each and 385 students were included within the study. Throughout the semester, an experimental group of students attended classes in rooms that contained an assortment of tropical plants. The control group of students attended class in rooms with no plants.
At the end of the semester, the students were asked to complete the university's course and instructor evaluation survey, and each student provided demographic data, including class rank, gender, and ethnicity. To measure course performance, the professor for each course reported each student's grade for the course.