The Role of the Physical Campus for Productivity and Health 

Canada’s oldest universities were established in the 19th to early 20th century, and the 1960s to 1980s saw the boom of new universities established and built (Anisef et al., 2015). Many more have emerged since then, a few of which built from scratch (e.g., University of Northern British Columbia, Weller & Soleau, 1996) but most of these universities transformed from existing university colleges and community colleges (Anisef et al., 2015).

Campuses have been designed for their educational missions by design practitioners based on certain, often untested, assumptions (Hajrasouliha & Ewing, 2016), and space planning decisions have not necessarily been informed by empirical evidence regarding the relationships between space and teaching, learning, and research (Temple, 2008). Although interest in such relationships has grown over the last two decades (e.g., Oblinger, 2006; Leijon et al., 2022), research on users’ perceptions and usage of the physical campus is lacking (McDonald-Yale & Birchall, 2021). Designing the physical campus with the end-users in mind is needed (Cleveland & Fisher, 2014; Vischer, 2008).

The physical campus serves many roles: a place for learning, for social interactions, relaxation and restoration, physical activities, campus social and cultural events, and for some, a place of residence. The campus is not only a place for students, but also a place of work for faculty and staff, and a place for visitors and the community-at-large. As Coulson et al. (2023) points out, campus is more than a collection of buildings and is indeed a community of its own.

To facilitate high-quality post-secondary education, the physical campus must support students in learning, faculty in teaching and research, and staff in the administration of programmes and services. To achieve high productivity, the campus must also enhance the wellbeing of all members. In this chapter, I address how some aspects of the physical campus environment may play a role in the productivity and wellbeing of the post-secondary community, with special reference to Canadian campuses whenever possible. This chapter will end with a discussion of issues regarding the future role of the physical campus in higher education.

From an environmental stimulation perspective, behaviours (e.g., learning) can be affected by the sensory stimuli and people in the physical environment (e.g., classroom, open green space) through cognitive (e.g., attention, concentration), physiological (e.g., comfort level), and affective means (e.g., motivation), according to Choi et al.’s (2014) cognitive load model.

For a long time, higher education has followed the behavioural/cognitive pedagogical model that emphasizes the expertise of the faculty. Programmed instructions are delivered in classrooms and lecture halls, where the physical space often involves a podium at the front for the instructor and rows of desks and chairs for students at the back (Beckers et al., 2015). While there is a body of research on the influence of the physical environment of K-12 classrooms on behaviour, attitudes, and performance of both teachers and students (e.g., Barrett et al., 2015; Byers et al., 2018; Weinstein, 1979; Woolner et al., 2007), such research in higher education is still in its early development (Ellis & Goodyear, 2016; Leijon et al., 2022; Temple, 2008).

Highlighting what we do know about physical space and post-secondary, several studies have shown lighting, temperature, and particularly noise to be important. For example, in an early field experiment in a western Canadian university, Ward and Suedfeld (1973) showed that highway noise outside the classrooms reduced students’ self-reported participation and attention in class, audibility of comments, and enjoyment in discussions. In a laboratory experiment (Marchand et al., 2014), university students who listened to a passage in a classroom where the lighting, sound, and temperature were set outside the comfort zone reported having more negative emotional states and lower test scores than those in the classroom set at normal comfort level, and students attributed their poor performance to the sound and temperature in the room. In Yang et al.’s (2013) study, students believed temperature, artificial lighting, and particularly acoustics impacted their academic performance. In an Italian study, students perceived acoustic comfort to be most strongly related to background noise and speech intelligibility and visual comfort to be correlated with illuminance value and glare (Ricciardi et al., 2018). Also desirable is a view to outdoors (Douglas & Gifford, 2001), especially a view of nature (Benfield et al., 2015).

Having comfortable furniture is also important to students. For example, in a study of 35 classrooms in two Canadian universities, students reported a preference for comfortable seating and seating arrangements that supported interaction (Douglas & Gifford, 2001). Students in the “soft classroom” that had fabric wall decorations, covered seats, and carpeting reported enhanced participation in class (Sommer & Olsen, 1980), and the results persisted 17 years later (Wong et al., 1992).

The issue of seating location in the classroom was of interest to educators. In a critical review of research studies that used randomly assigned seating versus self-selected seating, Montello (1988, p. 149) concluded that there was no solid empirical evidence for seating location influencing course grade, but there was evidence for seating location influencing class participation and attitudes about the course. In the Yang et al. (2013) study, students sitting in the middle or front of the classroom reported the highest visibility and best acoustics, which are qualities that may have contributed to the high engagement and quality of classroom experience (Park & Choi, 2014; Shernoff et al., 2017) and course grade (Shernoff et al., 2017) reported by students sitting in those areas. Alternatively, the seating location choice could also be influenced by students’ academic achievement, desire to engage, or other factors (e.g., personality, Montello, 1988; student confidence, Park & Choi, 2014).

As demonstrated, physical space can have many impacts on students, though unfortunately as yet, very few field experiments can demonstrate a clear causal effect on learning. This is especially challenging in field work because of the likelihood of confounding variables including students self-selecting into course sections, classrooms, and so on. Nevertheless, echoing Temple (2008) and Woolner et al.’s (2007) review of K-12 classrooms, there is more evidence of impact on learning when the quality of physical environment is below a threshold level (e.g., inadequate lighting) than when it is above. Studies that examine preferences, satisfaction, and perception of various aspects of the classroom are correlational in nature, but they do indicate where improvements could be made.

Since the last decade or so, some educators have called for a social constructivist, student-centred approach to learning that emphasizes communication and social interaction as essential activities in the generation and development of knowledge (Beckers et al., 2015). These educators have advocated for a flexible and adaptable design for teaching and learning spaces that they believe support active, collaborative learning (King, 2016). Active learning classrooms are generally equipped with movable furniture, often including round tables, accessible outlets, computers, mobile whiteboards, projectors, video, Internet, and other accessories (Painter et al., 2013), though active learning classrooms do not necessarily need to be equipped with sophisticated technologies. These new technologies and pedagogical practices may necessitate new classroom lighting guidelines (Castilla et al., 2018) and acoustics considerations (Finkelstein et al., 2016)

In Canada, since 2007, McGill University has developed a set of design principles for teaching and learning spaces that includes layout, furniture, technologies, acoustics, and lighting/colour (Finkelstein et al., 2016) and has designed several active learning classrooms (Active learning classrooms (ACLs), n.d.). Similarly, University of British Columbia has been transforming their learning spaces to support teaching and learning that is “accessible, immersive, collaborative, and technology-enriched” (Active learning classrooms, n.d.). No doubt other universities are following suit.

Despite an increase in new active learning classrooms, there is limited evidence of their effects on important student outcomes (Leijon et al., 2022; Thomas et al., 2019). That said, in highly cited early evaluations of two projects (SCALE-UP and TEAL) in which learning spaces, pedagogical approaches, and teaching materials were all modified, Belchner et al. (2007) and Dori & Belchner (2005) reported improved performance in conceptual learning, problem-solving, communication and teamwork skills, and decreased drop-out rate among students. It is important to note that most evaluations were qualitative, case studies (e.g., Fisher & Newton, 2014; Salter et al., 2013), and although helpful for providing insights, it is not clear that findings will generalize to other campuses.

Do changes to the spatial design of classrooms alone have any effects on student experiences and course outcomes? To answer this question, researchers have compared two sections of the same course taught by the same instructor using active learning pedagogy, one in a traditional classroom and one in an active learning classroom. The results of these quasi-experiments have been mixed: some studies show increased student performance (Brooks, 2011; Ralph et al., 2022), retention rates (Ralph et al., 2022), and interest and engagement (Clinton & Wilson, 2019; Sawers et al., 2016); others show higher student satisfaction with an “upgraded” classroom but no differences in expected grades (Hill & Epp, 2010); whereas others show no significant difference in gain in content knowledge, in-class attendance (Vercellotti, 2018), or course grade (Bruner et al., 2022).

Disappointingly, in a three-semester study, Perks et al (2016) at the University of Lethbridge demonstrated that the effects of classroom renovation did not persist, and satisfaction among students and instructors returned to the baseline level in the third semester, although the classroom continued to be seen as an effective learning space. Looking at instructors alone, simply changing the physical design and adding new technology to the learning spaces does not automatically lead to a change in pedagogical practice. For example, in Swinnerton’s (2021) study, those academic staff who did not ask for use of a redesigned space continued to use the redesigned room in lecture format.

Like before, these quasi-experiments suffer from several confounding variables. These include self-selection of student into course sections (Ralph et al., 2022), differences in class sizes between active learning classrooms and lecture-theatres (Ralph et al., 2022), differences in the design of active learning classrooms (Ralph et al., 2022), and the novelty of change itself between before- and after- renovation (Perks et al., 2016). Additionally, and importantly, there are also confounds related to instructors: instructors were volunteers who tended to already use active learning strategies in class (e.g., Perks et al., 2016; Ralph et al., 2022). Finally, items in the scales used to measure student engagement (Bruner et al., 2022; Sawer et al., 2016) and on-task behaviour (Brooks, 2012) could be biased toward one pedagogical approach or the other.

A common theme across several studies (Brooks, 2012; Park & Choi, 2014; Sanders, 2013) is that learning works best when instructors use rooms designed for that type of pedagogy: traditional classrooms for lecture-based courses and active learning classrooms for group-focused courses. In more recent studies, researchers have sought to delineate how learning space, teaching philosophy, pedagogy, learning activities, instructor behaviour, student engagement and other variables are inter-related by testing various path models (e.g., Sawers et al., 2016; Thomas et al., 2019).

In short, the research findings so far seem to suggest that any successes of active learning spaces over traditional classrooms are due to instructors using an active, collaborative learning approach to teach in a space designed for that purpose. That is, the technology, furniture, and spatial layout “afford” such functions, as Barker’s (1968) behaviour setting theory described earlier suggests. While the active learning spaces seem to enhance students’ enjoyment, participation, and engagement in learning activities and perhaps performance, they do so in concert with pedagogical practice, instructor behaviour, learner characteristics, and other factors.

Students value functionality of a learning space more than the aesthetics (Beckers et al., 2016a). In a survey conducted in 23 informal learning spaces of various sizes at University of Victoria, Canada, a medium-sized university in western Canada (Scannell et al., 2016), students perceived a suitable learning space to have low background noise so that they could hear their own conversations but not others nearby. Other important attributes of space reported by students include having adequate lighting and natural light, comfortable temperatures, spaciousness, ample work surface, view of outdoors, as well as access to power outlets, computer devices and equipment, internet, and wireless connections (Beckers et al., 2016a; Crook & Mitchell, 2012; Harrop & Turpin, 2013; Matthews et al., 2011; Wilson & Cotgrave, 2016). Low seating density and some vegetation and soft material are also desirable (Scannell et al., 2016).

To some students, the social ambience is very important; they prefer to study in the open social space within the library (Crook & Mitchell, 2012; Wilson & Cotgrave, 2016) or at a “social learning centre” (Matthew et al., 2011). These students value the opportunities to socialize with friends (Beckers et al., 2016a; Crook and Mitchell, 2012; Harrop & Turpin, 2013; Matthews et al., 2011). As Social Facilitation Theory (Zajonc, 1965) would suggest, some students found it motivating to work alongside others (Harrop &Turpin, 2013) even if they were not interacting with them (Matthews et al., 2011). Learning spaces with socializing opportunities and higher noise levels tend to be preferred by extraverts (Campbell & Hawley, 1982), and students who are highly agreeable, in art and design, or in their first year (Beckers et al., 2016a).

Still others use coffee shops both on- and off-campus as informal learning spaces, as reported in several studies (Banning et al., 2010; Harrop & Turpin, 2013; Hunter & Cox, 2014; Waxman et al., 2007). Students gather to have food and drink, socialize, relax, read, and study in a relaxing atmosphere, and are motivated by the presence of other students engaging in similar activities. They prefer comfortable and movable furniture, adequate lighting for the tasks, pleasant coffee and food smells, views to the outside, and a warm atmosphere (Waxman et al., 2007). Popular seats were reported to be in quiet corners away from the traffic and sheltered by a wall or a window. Some students use coffee shops as a visit between classes, but others stayed a long time for intense studying (Hunter & Cox, 2014).

In sum, students choose different informal learning spaces for different activities for their perceived effectiveness (Beckers et al., 2016b). Studies of these learning spaces typically use case-study design in which researchers collect data through questionnaire surveys, student diaries, observations, and interviews. Research has focused primarily on students’ preferences, their perception and evaluation of the spaces, usage of the spaces, and their social experience within those spaces, and rarely are learning outcomes measured.

Research has generally shown that closed, private offices are more desirable for work that requires concentration than are shared or open-plan offices (Kaarlela-Tuomaala et al., 2009; Radun & Hongisto, 2023). A recent systematic review of field investigations of offices concludes that private offices have the most favourable outcomes that influence organizational productivity, such as social relations, cognitive performance, and work output (Masoudinejad & Veitch, 2023).

Graduate students and research staff are often assigned open plan offices, despite the nature of their work which often requires concentration and focus. Working in an open plan office often results in a trade-off between communication and privacy (Kim & de Dear, 2013). In a UK study, graduate students and research staff who had moved to a newly designed open plan office and those in a traditional office with cubicles were observed. Contrary to the design goal of increasing communication, face-to-face interactions in the renovated office decreased one year later. These occupants reported the lack of privacy and distraction by noise to be problematic (Lansdale et al., 2011). Similar findings were reported in a study of young researchers working in open-plan offices in China (Kang et al., 2017); the occupants were most dissatisfied with the acoustic environment, and they perceived noise to harm their work productivity. These results are consistent with research findings conducted in corporate offices (e.g., Jahncke et al., 2011).

The activity-based office, a popular design concept in corporations, has been introduced to academia in Europe in recent years (in Sweden, Berthelsen et al., 2018; the Netherlands, Gorgievski et al., 2010; UK, Lansdale et al., 2011). In activity-based offices, workers have no assigned seating, and they move from one space designed to serve one function (e.g., cognitive work) to another space designed for a different function (e.g., face-to-face meetings) as their job tasks require. Although occupants liked the possibilities of meeting people, they were concerned about visual and auditory privacy, security, and storage space, as well as their ability to control the climate and the appearance of their workspace, and to express their identity (Gorgievski et al., 2010; Lansdale et al., 2011). Having control over aspects of the physical work environment (Lee & Brand, 2005) and the ability to establish and personalize a territory have been demonstrated to be important to employees in corporate offices (Wells, 2000). Even though hot-desking policies prohibit occupants from personalizing their workspace (Lansdale et al., 2011), some users occupied the most-desirable workspaces repeatedly by leaving their work or belongings behind to mark their territories (Berthelsen et al., 2018; Lansdale et al., 2011). Consequently, occupants worked more often from home or elsewhere than before (Berthelsen et al., 2018; Gorgievski et al., 2010; Lansdale et al., 2011).

Ideally, students, staff, and visitors should be able to orient themselves and navigate around the campus with ease. Getting lost or even disoriented can be frustrating and stressful (Chang, 2013), especially among new students, first-time visitors, those in a hurry, and those with various impairments.

Wayfinding refers to finding your way from where you are to a destination with the use of cues in the environment. It involves developing a plan of action, acting on the plan at the right time and place, and processing information about the environment (Arthur & Passini, 1992; Passini, 1984). Successful wayfinding is dependent on both environmental factors (e.g., spatial layout) and individual characteristics (e.g., spatial ability, prior acquired knowledge) (Jamshidi et al., 2020). An environment can be learned and understood easily (often termed “legible”) if it has clear paths, nodes, districts, edges, and landmarks (Lynch, 1960). Environmental legibility and familiarity have significant impact on wayfinding performance and the development of spatial awareness (Li & Klippel, 2016). The degree of differentiation, degree of visual access, and complexity of spatial layout of buildings on a campus can influence how incoming students, who were unfamiliar with the environment, orient themselves spatially and the actions they take to find their way around (Abu-Ghazzeh, 1996). A simple layout (e.g., grid pattern) with different pictural information about the buildings (e.g., shape) enhanced students’ mental representation of the campus (Abu-Obeid, 1998).

In addition to relying on cues from the environment, people turn to maps and signage for help. To be effective, signs should be legible, visible, aligned with the actual environment, and be placed at critical decision-points (Farr et al., 2012). The provision of wayfinding technologies such as mobile applications may improve wayfinding (McDonald-Yale & Birchall, 2021). As an example, the University of Guelph, Canada, a medium-sized university in central Canada, has installed an app-based wayfinding system to help those with visual impairments find their way around campus (Haldenby, 2019).

Physical activities

Place attachment refers to the bond toward a place (Scannell & Gifford, 2010). Such attachment encompasses emotions (e.g., taking pride), cognition (e.g., having good knowledge and fond memories of the place, people, and events), and behaviours (e.g., frequent visits). Both the social and physical qualities of a place are important contributors to the development of such attachment (Scannell & Gifford, 2010).

As students and staff spend time and experience life on campus, they may acquire personal meaning and develop place attachment to the campus (Scannell & Gifford, 2010). In a study in France, students’ attachment to the university’s neighborhood was related to the time spent in it. The time spent on student activities influenced how much they actively travelled, explored, and gained knowledge about the neighborhood, which in turn led to high attachment (Rioux, 2017). Demographics have a role to play. For example, first-year undergraduates who transitioned from home to university underwent a process to make sense of changes in their socio-spatial environment (Chow & Healey, 2008). Students began to form attachment to the university during their second year, and attachment peaked in the third year of their programme (Spooner, 2019; Sun & Maliki, 2013).

A variety of physical spaces on campus can contribute to place attachment, including dormitories, classrooms and labs, dining halls, and outdoor spaces, libraries, student clubs (Spooner, 2019; Sun & Maliki, 2013). Joining a student organization was a significant event for students to feel a sense of attachment (Spooner, 2019). Students who participated in outdoor recreation activities with their peers or through various campus programmes exhibited a stronger sense of place and attachment to their campus (Miller, 2011). In surveys of students attending universities in southern Ontario, Canada, those living off-campus reported commuting to be a disincentive to participating in extra-curricular activities on campus (Coutts, 2018; Taylor & Mitra, 2021), suggesting that commuting students are less likely to feel attachment to their campus. Place attachment has been shown to be associated with positive outcomes (e.g., happiness at university, Sun & Maliki, 2013).

Accessibility

Universities have the responsibility to be leaders in combating climate change. Campus buildings should be designed to be eco-friendly and sustainable. One avenue is to conserve resources through preservation of historical or architecturally significant structures or adaptive reuse of campus buildings (e.g., Browne & McCluskie, 2018; Coulson et al., 2023).

Universities can also focus on environmental education and research, and sustainable practice. For example, in 2010, the University of British Columbia in Canada launched the Campus as a Living Laboratory initiative that used campus buildings and infrastructure as opportunities for research, teaching, and learning of sustainable development.  These projects range in scale from small projects conducted by undergraduate and graduate students within their academic curricula or as extracurricular activities to the multi-year design and construction of innovative, sustainable buildings and research facilities, in collaboration with campus operations and administration, community members, and external partners. The vision has been to use the campus as a testbed for new ideas, study the outcomes, and then disseminate the knowledge gained within and beyond the campus. A strong culture of sustainability facilitated by top leadership is an enabler to the success of the initiative, and establishing clear policy objectives and campus-wide goals that are supported by action plans and operational priorities is crucial (Pilon et al., 2020).

A content analysis of sustainability policies of 50 Canadian colleges and universities showed that campus operations were discussed in detail in all policies, but only vaguely with regards to education (i.e., curriculum) and research, and even less frequently in relation to community outreach (Vaughter et al., 2016). No doubt these policies will be further developed and implemented. For universities to respond fully and effectively to the current ecological crisis, Sterling (2021) argues that universities need to first transform themselves from the current educational thinking, policy, and practice to a systemic, holistic, and dynamic way of thinking.

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