Journal of the Korean Institute of Educational Facilities (교육시설 논문지)

Korean Institute of Educational Facilities (한국교육시설학회)
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Investigation of the Acoustic Performance of Lower Grade Elementary School Classrooms

초등학교 저학년 교실의 실내음향성능 실태조사

  • Jo, A-Hyeon (Dept. of Architectural Engineering, Chungbuk National Univ.) ;
  • Park, Chan-Jae (Dept. of Architectural Engineering, Chungbuk National Univ.) ;
  • Haan, Chan-Hoon (Dept. of Architectural Engineering, Chungbuk National Univ.)
  • Received : 2021.02.25
  • Accepted : 2021.05.24
  • Published : 2021.05.30
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Abstract

Speech information of teachers is transmitted to students in classrooms so that appropriate aural environment should be provided for academic purposes. Many researches have been undertaken for classroom acoustics, and acoustic standards of domestic classrooms were suggested based on the reverberation time and background noise level. However, these standards are suitable for middle and high schools and so not consider the auditory ability by ages. As a precedent research, the present study was begun to suggest an acoustic standard for lower grade elementary school classrooms with children under age 9 who have not normal auditory ability. In order to do this, acoustic performances of the lower grade classrooms were measured and compared with the general classrooms. Also, change of acoustic parameters depending on the desk layout was measured and analyzed. The measured acoustic parameters were background noise, signal to noise ratio, RT, STI, D50, and IACC. As a result, it was found that background noise is exceed the standard of 35dB(A) at the schools along the road sides. Also, it was shown that most of acoustic parameters are higher in the classrooms built recently rather than the old classrooms. Generally, there are not much difference of acoustic parameters among the various desk layouts but, better acoustic performances are acquired at the center line and the seats near sound source. Also, Higher IACC was measured at the seats on the center line facing the source squarely.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) grant funded by the Korea government(MSIT) (No. 2020R1A2C2009963)

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