Abstract
The lighting condition of the space impacts students’ performance and overall cognitive performance. Studies on the effect of lighting on student performance have been conducted in traditional classroom settings. No such investigations have focused on medical students who conduct their classes in teaching hospital settings. Much of the research has focused on the effect of lighting on patients’ well-being. To the authors’ knowledge, medical students and doctors have seldom been the focus of previous investigations in healthcare research. The study seeks to understand the effect of lighting on medical students’ cognitive performance. Specifically, the study compares medical student performance under natural and artificial light in a hospital setting. Recognition memory is tested using a forced choice format, which is essentially a multiple-choice questionnaire, to test the difference between the student’s direct and delayed recall on a long-term basis. The study was carried out on two days, with a total sample of forty-eight students participating. The study presents novel findings regarding the impact of interior space-lighting quality on medical students’ academic performance, specifically on their cognitive loads. The results also shed light on the cultural parameters that may affect performance. The experiment concluded that in both spaces, the higher the light intensity, the better the students’ performance. However, they belong to two different groups, with the trend lines in the scatter graphs showing that students in natural lighting generally performed better than those in artificial lighting
Presenters
Salma AhmedResearch Assistant, Architecture, The American University in Cairo, Al Qahirah, Egypt Sherif Goubran
Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, American university in Cairo, Egypt Salma Halawa
Research Assistant, Architecture, The American University in Cairo, Al Qahirah, Egypt Nouran Elkhattam
Research Assistant, Architecture, The American University in Cairo, Al Qahirah, Egypt
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Education, Assessment and Policy
KEYWORDS
COGNITIVE LOAD, MEDICAL STUDENTS, LIGHTING, TEACHING HOSPITALS
