Learning Environment
M. Arghiani
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Creating a sense of community provides desirable conditions for students' moral, social and physical development. Understanding this sense of community has received growing attention of researchers in various fields. Sociology stresses the sense of people’s belonging ...
Read More
Background and Objectives: Creating a sense of community provides desirable conditions for students' moral, social and physical development. Understanding this sense of community has received growing attention of researchers in various fields. Sociology stresses the sense of people’s belonging to a place, mainly by exploring social and emotional ties between people in a place, which deals with the mental perception and feelings that people have about a given place. From the perspective of anthropologists, it deals with subjects such as individual perception of place, the meaning of place, as well as aesthetic and emotional issues. In this context, belonging chiefly refers to the emotional connections between people and place. This issue is defined by anthropologists as the sense of belonging to a place or a symbolic relationship with a place, which is forged by attaching a symbolic meaning to a specific place. It further provides collective and individual perception and relationship with the environment. Landscape architects also see the sense of community as a concept closely associated with the sense of belonging to a place, contending that it is primarily cognitive and emotional. That is, this concept is explained for individuals through various common events, beliefs, experiences and cultural habits. In this regard, the present study was conducted with the aim of identifying factors affecting students' sense of community. With respect to its goal, this research is classified as an applied research. Methods: In this research, attempts have been made to use the survey method to answer the research hypotheses and measure the studied indices. To do so, by studying the existing sources, 16 components affecting the sense of community were extracted. By designing, distributing and collecting the questionnaire, the views of the research community were examined. Accordingly, 40 questionnaires were distributed among a group of university professors and the effect and priority of the obtained psychological, physical and behavioral components were evaluated. After removing incomplete questionnaires, 19 questionnaires were included in the final analysis. We used hierarchical analysis process for this purpose. Findings: The factors of security and knowing individuals and places among psychological components, the factor of spatial quality component among physical components, and the factor of collective activity among behavioral components were identified as the most important components affecting the sense of community in educational settings. Conclusion: To promote the sense of community in educational settings, the following issues should be taken into account. 1) The importance of the place of activity: encouraging students to engage in various educational activities, such as sharing ideas with others, participating in class discussions, connecting with the teacher and providing an environment for gathering (amphitheater in a convenient place with ease of access). 2) The importance of security in a place: an external danger or threat or common threats can damage a sense of community in the environment or the solidarity of individuals. To overcome the problems and issues that may arise from danger, social norms are required, especially when they provide security for individuals in the group. 3) The recognition of individuals and places: when students know each other, it fosters a social feature that leads to an improved sense of community. 4) Spatial quality: desirable and pleasant places that are visually stimulating enhance aware and environmental knowledge of people. The richer the place, the more people are encouraged to stay together.
Learning Environment
M. Arghiyani; seyed abass agha yazdanfar; M. Feizi
Abstract
Background and Objective:Given the basic needs of humans in various social, emotional, intellectual and physical aspects, the current learning environment is far from reaching the living and active space, the place to encounter, experience, and so on. various studies show that collective sense has the ...
Read More
Background and Objective:Given the basic needs of humans in various social, emotional, intellectual and physical aspects, the current learning environment is far from reaching the living and active space, the place to encounter, experience, and so on. various studies show that collective sense has the greatest impact on the participation of individuals in the performance of the environment. the collective sense is multidimensional, and the place must be somewhere for a collective sense among users. One of the missions of designers and architects is to create a proportionate relationship between humans and the environment around them. To achieve this goal, the creators of space must have a correct understanding of human behavior in different environments to strengthen the connection between man and place. Studies of learning environments have grown significantly over the past 30 years and many studies have been done on the relationship between the classroom environment and student learning. The history of studies of educational spaces shows that these environments have been less studied from sociocultural aspects. The school environment has been studied as a social learning environment for the last four decades. This indicates that the spatial features of the school building can increase or decrease opportunities for interaction between students, which in turn affects the level of socialization, awareness and knowledge of others and the level of collective feeling. Methods:Based on available literature, the five-dimensional model of the richness of place, social ties and interaction, collective activity, security, and sense of belonging and identity were extracted as the most effective criteria for revealing collective sense. to evaluate the theoretical model, three schools were selected from among high schools in Tehran and appropriate questionnaires were distributed among them. the research sample consisted of 750 people who have been selected by random sampling method. content analysis method was used in theoretical part to categorize the views and the case study was used for doing the research. the research method is factor analysis. Findings: The factor load of each measure in the theoretical model was determined and finally, 11 final strategies for designing the educational environment were explained. Conclusion: This study seeks to evaluate the relationship between collective sense and the quality of educational spaces. Closed educational spaces are the platform for social interactions between users, so it is necessary to review and pay special attention to the design of educational closed spaces as a collective space in many types of education today. The results of this study emphasize the importance of spatial features on the evaluation of collective feeling in place. Accordingly, the mental-psychological and behavioral-activity dimensions are other effective criteria in the collective feeling among users. The presented results are the first step in analyzing and evaluating the closed educational space. The results of this research can be considered as the starting point to evaluate and review the closed educational spaces and become the basis for developing a design guide to improve the quality of the closed educational space.
