Identifying the components of school physical environment with participatory learning approach (Case study: Boys’ middle schools of Tabriz)

One of the important and influential issues of research is recognizing the components of the physical environment of schools as learning process can be influenced by the physical environment of the school. Paying attention to the architectural features of school buildings, among other features, can be achieved by creating schools with successful students. What is commonly known today as the physical model of the school are the classrooms that are continuously connected through the corridor, and this pattern of building schools as a pattern continues. If the learning environment, whether classroom or school, is designed in such a way that students are the center of activity, it provides a very good ground for increasing students' interest in the school environment. In the collaborative learning method that is the goal of the research, students are placed in such an environment and engage in collaborative activity. The purpose of this study was to identify the physical environment components of schools with a participatory learning approach.

This applied research is of descriptive-analytical type. The statistical population of the study was male middle school students in Tabriz. 356 male middle school students were randomly selected from four schools in different parts of the city. The data were analyzed by one-sample t-test and chi-square test.

The results showed that the satisfaction of the physical environment in all four studied schools was low and the tendency for the environments in which the students could participate was very high. It can be deduced that the more the physical environment of the school has favorable conditions for participatory learning, the higher the level of satisfaction and interest in learning in students are, and also education and training take place properly.

The results showed that the elements of physical environment such as furniture, green space, color, and space geometry are among the most important factors in learning, especially learning and cooperative activity in schools, which can have a significant effect on students’ satisfaction and their presence with enthusiasm at school. One of the suggestions of the present study is to design suitable and efficient spaces according to the aesthetic and psychological principles as well as the use of collaborative learning method for lecture-based teaching.