Purpose

As oral communication in higher education is vital, good classroom acoustics is needed to pass the verbal message to university students. Non-auditory factors such as academic language, a non-native educational context and a diversity of acoustic settings in different types of classrooms affect speech understanding and performance of students. The purpose of this study is to find out whether the acoustic properties of the higher educational teaching contexts meet the recommended reference levels.

Design/methodology/approach

Background noise levels and the Speech Transmission Index (STI) were assessed in 45 unoccupied university classrooms (15 lecture halls, 16 regular classrooms and 14 skills laboratories).

Findings

The findings of this study indicate that 41 classrooms surpassed the maximum reference level for background noise of 35 dB(A) and 17 exceeded the reference level of 40 dB(A). At five-meter distance facing the speaker, six classrooms indicated excellent speech intelligibility, while at more representative listening positions, none of the classrooms indicated excellent speech intelligibility. As the acoustic characteristics in a majority of the classrooms exceeded the available reference levels, speech intelligibility was likely to be insufficient.

Originality/value

This study seeks to assess the acoustics in academic classrooms against the available acoustic reference levels. Non-acoustic factors, such as academic language complexity and (non-)nativeness of the students and teaching staff, put higher cognitive demands upon listeners in higher education and need to be taken into account when using them in daily practice for regular students and students with language/hearing disabilities in particular.

中文翻译：

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高等教育中具有挑战性的听力环境：学术课堂声学分析

目的

由于高等教育中的口头交流至关重要，因此需要良好的课堂音响效果将口头信息传递给大学生。非听觉因素，如学术语言、非母语教育环境和不同类型教室中的各种声学环境，都会影响学生的言语理解和表现。本研究的目的是找出高等教育教学环境的声学特性是否符合推荐的参考水平。

设计/方法/方法

在 45 个空置的大学教室（15 个报告厅、16 个普通教室和 14 个技能实验室）中评估了背景噪音水平和语音传输指数 (STI)。

发现

这项研究的结果表明，41 间教室超过了 35 分贝（A）的最大背景噪音参考水平，17 间教室超过了 40 分贝（A）的参考水平。在与演讲者相距 5 米的距离内，有 6 个教室表现出良好的语音清晰度，而在更具代表性的聆听位置，没有一个教室表现出出色的语音清晰度。由于大多数教室的声学特性超过了可用的参考水平，语音清晰度可能不足。

原创性/价值

本研究旨在根据可用的声学参考水平评估学术教室中的声学。非声学因素，如学生和教师的学术语言复杂性和（非）母语，对高等教育中的听众提出了更高的认知要求，在普通学生和学生的日常实践中需要考虑到尤其是语言/听力障碍。