Bremen study - Good acoustics reduce teachers heartrates

The impressive results show that:

• Teachers’ heartrates went down by 10 beats per minute

• The sound levels were reduced dramatically: 6 dB for traditional teaching and 13 dB for group work
  
  

How is this possible? 

If a classroom has poor acoustics, sound will be amplified as it bounces off the reflective ceiling and walls. This will create a background noise that distorts speech. Sound levels will escalate because students and teachers have to raise their voices to be heard. This environment will often feel quite stressful.

A sound-absorbing ceiling reduces the overall sound level in the classroom and reduces the background noise. This is what happened in the classrooms with good acoustics.

Here, the sound level was 6 dB lower for traditional teaching and 13 dB lower for group work. Since the measured effect of the ceiling was a reduction of 3 dB, this meant that teachers and pupils changed their behaviour when the sound environment was improved. Because they no longer needed to raise their voices to be heard, they could actually speak more quietly and still be heard perfectly. The classrooms became a more relaxed environment where everybody felt calmer, and as a result their heartrates went down.

Ecophon solution 

Ecophon was involved in the study from start to finish. The sound-absorbing ceiling used in the rooms with good acoustics was Ecophon Master™.

The study 

The German study was conducted in 5 schools, 28 classes, 70 classrooms and 570 lessons. The pupils were between 5 and 11 years old and the study compared classrooms with and without acoustic ceilings.

Want to know more?

• Read more in-depth about the Bremen report to learn even more about the impact of good sound environment in schools.