COLOR IN AN OPTIMUM LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Colour in an Optimum Learning Environment



Colour in an Optimum Learning Environment

Abstract

The aim of lighting design is to supply appropriate luminance, color temperature, and lighting to meet the requirement of the users' vision form physical to psychological. Young children are taken as a sample who are attracted by warm, bright colors. As the child matures, preferences change from tints and pastels (elementary school) to bright medium-cool colors such as greens, blues, and green-blues (middle school) to darker colors (high school) such as burgundy, grey, navy, dark green, deep turquoise, and violet (Gale 1933). Some people believe that lighting itself has no effect on their performance. According to Veitch as cited by Higgins & et al (2005) lighting has no effect on people's mood or performance. But in the other hand many people believe that lighting in environments has direct effect on their mood and it can change their performance as well.

Introduction

Colour is an important factor in the physical learning environment and is a major element in interior design that impacts student achievement, as well as teacher effectiveness and staff efficiency. Research has demonstrated that specific colors and patterns directly influence the health, morale, emotions, behavior, and performance of learners, depending on the individual's culture, age, gender, and developmental level, the subject being studied, and the activity being conducted.* Colour is part of a haptic environment. A haptic environment is the architectural integration of artistic experience, function, and technology to derive a meaningful perception (Anderson, 1993).

For instance, most of people have spent some of their time in buildings that may feel sick and uncomfortable, and they naturally desire to escape from that toxicity and uncomfortable environment. There is a kind of stress on people's body that can lead to disease or slow breakdown of biological function (Anderson, 1993).

The important point is that the human body wishes to be healthy, and for having a very great physical and mental power it is necessary to have appropriate environment, because human bodies' health rooted in the genetic imperative to remain biologically viable. Each cell in human body is separately able to sense and respond correctly to both positive and negative influences in environments.

Participants

The sample group was from students enrolled in the Ankara University Private High School. For the experiment, children were chosen by stratified quota sampling on the basis of age, gender and familiarity factor. All participants were primary school first graders, aged seven and eight years old. Only the participants who were unfamiliar to the building were selected. A total of 100 children participated to the tests, where a third of this sample group was used for each test (32 children for experiment set 1, 34 children for experiment set 2 and 34 children for experiment set 3). Before the experiment, the layout of the building was analysed and a route from point X (main entrance of the building) to point Y (the biology laboratory) was specified for the experiment, as shown in ...