Effect of physical dimensions of classroom on Promotion of Active Participation in the Learning Process

The existing educational space in schools has been accused of assuming a passive role for children and creating negative effects on their mental development. Although this educational environment initially paved the way for introducing the modern educational program, it lacked the required ability to mobilize and activate a child’s mind, and create motivation for learning. Due to the significance of active learning, its effective elements are first described in this study. From among the 3 effective elements in active learning, “participation” was selected. Subsequently, the effective factors on a child’s participation in the learning process were determined in the form of two models, namely, the social model and the activity model. The research typology is a quantitative method through a surveying study The theoretical content analysis method was used to classify the different perspectives and the interview and observation method was implemented for the selected case study. The objective of this study is to examine the effect of class room size on the students’ participation in the learning process. The statistical population of this study was the middle school children in Bojnourd, Iran, in the 2014-2015 academic year. Subsequently, 279 students were randomly selected from among the above population for completing the questionnaire.  The results showed that the majority of the students preferred smaller classrooms, therefore, the overall conclusion in this study is that, to promote participation in the learning process, the following criteria must be considered in designing closed educational spaces: 1) socialization; 2) individual and group activity, and 3) involvement and experience in learning.