Strange new study finds students perform poorly on exams if exam room ceilings are too high | Health

You’ve done everything you need to for the exam: you’ve taken notes, studied well in advance, slept well, and even revised three times before the exam. And yet, you’re getting a lower score than you expected. You might be surprised by the culprit, which goes beyond your study habits. A new study from the University of South Australia and Deakin University reveals a strange link between academic performance and architecture. The study reveals how the design of a space can affect task performance. Students perform relatively poorly on their exams when they take them in large rooms with high ceilings.

A high ceiling won’t let you break the glass ceiling

The researchers assessed more than 15,400 undergraduate students over eight years at different college campuses. They took into account prior academic achievement and differences among students in socioeconomic status, age, gender and exam year for a standardized analysis.

A virtual reality (VR) test confirmed these findings. Participants were exposed to different rooms while environmental stimuli like noise and temperature were kept constant. Heart rate, breathing, and sweating measurements were taken to understand their anxiety levels. In these VR experiments, the researchers observed that simply sitting in a larger room made it difficult to concentrate and complete difficult tasks. They applied these findings to real-world situations and found similar results.

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Wide open spaces are not for exams.

Large spaces are designed to accommodate large gatherings and are particularly suitable for social activities such as exhibitions, events, theatre and gymnasiums. But this vastness of space affects cognitive performance, hampering concentration and task completion. In Australia, India and many other countries, university and school exams are held in large halls to reduce logistical costs.

The imposing size of the room, especially when unfamiliar, is accentuated by its high ceiling. This can trigger anxiety, stress and feelings of insignificance. These overwhelming emotions can be distracting. Secondly, large indoor spaces tend to be overcrowded, accommodating more students than the space can accommodate. This leads to poor air circulation, disrupting physical and mental well-being. The researchers called for a re-evaluation of these spaces. Exam rooms should be modified to ensure that students perform at their best, without environmental distractions interfering with their academic performance.

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