Abstract
This study aims to investigate the impact of physical elements in a library’s interior design on the concentration of students using the library for their work. The research question is as follows: which physical factors have, from their perspective, an impact on the concentration of students using the library for work? Also, this study compares the importance of the effect of the physical factors on the concentration of different users and activity profiles. There were 24 participants from 3 different Universities located in Guishan, Taoyuan, Taiwan answering the questionnaires and interview questions. Results showed that there were 11 factors rated as the most important factors affecting concentration ability namely: “Cleanliness”; “Aesthetic appearance”; “Noise level”; “Air movement”; “Amount of light”; “Air quality”; “Amount of space”; “Accessibility to facilities”; “Visual comfort”; “Crowdedness”; “Temperature”; and “Comfort of furnishing”.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Gayton, J.T.: Academic libraries: “social” or “communal?” The nature and future of academic libraries. J. Acad. Libr. 34(1), 60–66 (2008)
Sufar, S., Talib, A., Hambali, H.: towards a better design: physical interior environments of public libraries in Peninsular Malaysia. Procedia—Soc. Behav. Sci. 42, 131–143 (2012)
Applegate, R.: The library is for studying: student preferences for study space. J. Acad. Libr. 35(4), 341–346 (2009)
Sulaiman, W.I.W., Mahbob, M.H., Azlan, A.A.: Learning outside the classroom: effects on student concentration and interest. Procedia—Soc. Behav. Sci. 18, 12–17 (2011)
Cha, S.H., Kim, T.W.: What matters for students’ use of physical library space? J. Acad. Libr. 41(3), 274–279 (2015)
DeClercq, C.P., Cranz, G.: Moving beyond seating-centered learning environments: opportunities and challenges identified in a POE of a campus library. J. Acad. Libr. 40(6), 574–584 (2014)
Scott, J.: Attention/concentration: the distractible patient. In: Schoenberg, M.R., Scott, J.G. (eds.) The little black book of neuropsychology, pp. 149–158. Springer, US (2011)
Hoffmann, G., Gufler, V., Griemacher, A., Bartenbach, C., Canazei, M., Staggle, S., Schobersberger, W.: Effects of variable lighting intensities and colour temperatures on sulphatoxymelatonin and subjective mood in an experimental office workplace. Appl. Ergon. 39(6), 719–728 (2008)
Mazon, J.: The influence of thermal discomfort on the attention index of teenagers: an experimental evaluation. Int. J. Biometeorol. 58(5), 717–724 (2014)
Fisher, A.V., Godwin, K.E., Seltman, H.: Visual environment, attention allocation, and learning in young children when too much of a good thing may be bad. Psychol. Sci. 25(7), 1362–1370 (2014)
Gfeller, G., Butterfield-Nagy, D., Grignon, H.: Imagine a student-centered library. Coll. Res. Libr. News 72(5), 270–273 (2011)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Dang, TH., Chen, W. (2016). The Physical Elements Affecting Student’s Concentration in Libraries. In: Rebelo, F., Soares, M. (eds) Advances in Ergonomics in Design. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 485. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41983-1_27
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41983-1_27
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-41982-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-41983-1
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)