The room you take an examination in could have an impact on the test score, claims new study

It is a common belief that a high exam score depends upon how diligently a person prepares for their exam. But students can now blame the kind of room they take their exam in, with research to back their claim. A study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology suggests that an exam room with high ceilings has an impact on a student's cognitive ability and can lead to a low score. The researchers suggest that a big room can have an impact on a person's concentration.

Although many education institutions have relatively smaller classrooms, exam halls tend to be bigger to accommodate more students and save time and costs. The research team analyzed data from 15,400 undergraduates from three Australian tertiary institutions over eight years. The study also took account of other variables like coursework, general performance and so on and found out that a larger room led to reduced scores.

“These spaces are often designed for purposes other than examinations, such as gymnasiums, exhibitions, events and performances. The key point is that large rooms with high ceilings seem to disadvantage students and we need to understand what brain mechanisms are at play, and whether this affects all students to the same degree," Dr Isabella Bower, lead author of the paper, mentioned in a statement.

"A key constraint of this naturalistic retrospective study is that we are unable to probe whether the observed result is a direct result of the design quality of scale, or if differences arise because of the indoor environmental parameters afforded by the scale. For instance, as enlarged gymnasium spaces are often poorly insulated and are expensive to climate control, the observed effect may be due to lower ambient temperature on the students, which has been shown to reduce cognitive function in young adults," the study said. 

Other factors could also be things like unfamiliarity and crowds, as per IFLScience. "Lastly, the smaller room scale may allow students more opportunities to cheat. While the proctor-to-student ratio is far higher, the student-to-student ratio is lower reducing peer surveillance and monitoring which may influence if a student cheats by smuggling in notes," the researchers noted. "In Australia, many universities and schools use large indoor spaces for exams to streamline logistics and costs. It's crucial to recognize the potential impact of the physical environment on student performance and make necessary adjustments to ensure all students have an equal opportunity to succeed," Bower remarked.

“These findings will allow us to better design the buildings in which we live and work, so we can perform to the best of our ability," the study author continued. The research argues against conducting exams in rooms with high ceilings. “Based on these results we were curious to apply our lab findings to a real-world dataset and see if being in a large space like a gymnasium while having to concentrate on an important task would result in a poorer performance,” she added. Dr. Bower has been involved in understanding how spaces impact our brain function and behavior through the combination of her knowledge in architecture and psychology. It could be anything from "a hard test to how we feel about ourselves."