With the best intentions, teachers strive to decorate their classrooms so that their students feel comfortable and motivated to learn. But you have to do it carefully and not go overboard with the posters and figurines because excess decoration decreases children’s ability to maintain attention, follow instructions and stay on the assigned task. Which has a direct impact on their learning capacity.
The study was carried out with 24 kindergarten children who were taken to classrooms built inside a research laboratory to take six classes on different science topics that the children did not yet know. Three lessons took place inside an excessively decorated classroom and the other three classes took place in a sparsely decorated room.
When evaluating the children’s response, the researchers found that the children were able to learn in both classrooms, but they learned more when they were in a classroom with little decoration. These children had an average of 55% accuracy compared to 42% for children who were in a highly decorated classroom.
The children who were in the classroom with little decoration learned more
The research also measured how much time they lost off assigned tasks and the results showed that children in sparsely decorated classrooms were the least likely to stray off task (28.4%) compared to children with other children (38.6%).
This does not mean that all decorations should be eliminated from classes — how sad that would be — but the authors recommend that teachers be more conscious and careful with the decoration they choose and evaluate what function each poster or figurine will play within their classrooms. classes.
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Original study reference: Fisher, A.V., Godwin, K.E., & Seltman, H. (2014). Visual Environment, Attention Allocation, and Learning in Young Children: When Too Much of a Good Thing May Be Bad. Psychological Science.
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