Title : SUBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT OF LISTENING ENVIRONMENTS IN UNIVERSITY CLASSROOMS
Authors : Nithya Banukumar (1) and A. Ramachandraiah (2)
Publication : February 13-16, 2013
Volume :
Pages : 10-Jan
Price : 250
Abstract : Subjective opinions of listeners in various classroom environments were studied and the observed data have been analyzed to predict the acoustic comfort levels. The results have been correlated with objective parameters that predict speech intelligibility theoretically. The lacuna in being able to predict the total listening experience of the students and instructors was made up for with the help of a questionnaire based measurement tool as an adjunct to speech intelligibility tests which measures the student perception of the classroom listening environment. PLE (perceived listening ease) scores were found to correlate well with objective parameters like STI. However, the results of a multivariable regression analysis showed that the perceived listening ease is significantly reduced due to various acoustic and non-acoustic factors. The results in this context indicate that in actual classroom conditions, many factors in addition to physical and acoustical characteristics of the classroom considerably influence the user’s perception of the acoustical quality of the listening environment [1]. Less variation in PLE as compared to STI for the classroom studied indicate that verbal communication quality is only a minor aspect in the overall classroom listening quality. Implications from the results have been used to suggest recommendations for classroom design in general.