Impact of thermal comfort on online learning performance

Online learning has drawn much more attention since the outbreak of COVID-19. Most related studies have focused on online platform design and instructional design. However, the physical environment where online learning is conducted (e.g., students' homes) is rarely studied. To understand the thermal conditions in students' online learning environment and its impact on students' thermal comfort and their performance during online learning, an experiment, including both objective measurement and subjective assessment, was conducted in a student's apartment. Thirty university students participated in this experiment, and they were randomly assigned into six groups (three thermal conditions (i.e., control, cold, and hot) × two-course durations). Both environmental parameters (i.e., air temperature, radiant temperature, air velocity, etc.) and physiological parameters (i.e. skin temperatures) were measured at the same time. Besides, students' thermal sensation, acceptance, and learning performance were self-evaluated and collected through questionnaires. Results showed that participants' thermal sensation was positively correlated with their mean skin temperature (MST) and the operative temperature (T_o) in the apartment (MST: ρ = 0.94, p < 0.001; T_o: ρ = 0.91, p < 0.001), yet no significant relation with their personal characteristics was observed in the current study, which might be caused by the small sample size. Moreover, inverted U-shape relationships were identified between participants' perceived performance and their thermal sensation/MST/T_o. When students felt slightly cool (TSV = −0.3), they thought they could reach their best performance. This study revealed the impacts of the thermal environment on students' online learning performance, more performance tasks could be conducted in the future to examine the impacts in more detail.