Insights into Adaptive Thermal Comfort on Learning Efficiency of Students-A Classroom-Based Case Study

In light of increasing concerns about climatic impacts, adaptive thermal comfort has become a research focus. This study tried to explore key factors of adaptive thermal comfort on learning efficiency of students based on the classroom-based spatial density and time history. We underlined that adaptability reflects people's adaptive regulation in the face of change; experience of thermal comfort in naturally ventilated space influences the comfort expectation of students who learn in natural ventilation (NV) and fully air conditioning (AC) space. Both the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD) were used to examine both spatial density of the classroom and time history of the students, which influence learning efficiency. The results indicated that the learning efficiency of students is inferior as the density is 100%.As the density is 10%, the learning efficiency can be effectively improved. We argued that adaptive arrangement of indoor and outdoor thermal environment is crucial on improving learning efficiency of students. We concluded that adaptive actions of students in time history and the spatial density of the classroom depend on human-environment interplay; it revealed that the learning efficiency will be dominated by students' adaptability to be distracted not the temperatures.