School for Children: A Phenomenological Study

Recent years have witnessed an increased emphasis on the need for stakeholders’ participation in the design of school environments. This descriptive phenomenological study used stratified sampling to analyze the perception of the third to sixth grade students of four schools. To this end, an essay was assigned to the students who were asked to complete the unfinished sentence “I would like to study in a school that ...”. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi strategy. In order to increase the dependability, verifiability, reliability and accuracy of the data, the methods of "inspection and review at the time of coding", "using the opinions of research colleagues and verifying them", "explaining the exact details of the data collection and analysis process", "long-term engagement", triangulation and negative case analysis were used. The findings indicated that the majority of students were dissatisfied with the current state of schools, that is, schools did not provide them with a pleasant environment. Hence, the results of this study can be effective in making schools more pleasant.