CS
The quality of lighting in school classrooms is crucial for supporting students’ cognitive function and academic performance. This is also confirmed by a new study that presents remarkable results from a primary school in Bratislava, where pupils underwent three types of psychological tests to monitor cognitive functions such as logical thinking, theoretical numerical thinking, attention, perception and working speed. The experimental group of pupils in classrooms with bio-optimised full-spectrum LED lighting showed improvements in all types of tests during the winter months, in contrast to the control group, which spent the experimental period in classrooms with conventional artificial lighting.
Full-spectrum lighting to supplement the lack of daylight in the winter months
At the beginning of the experiment, the performance of students in the control and experimental groups was almost identical. The tests were administered in the period before the installation of the lighting in October 2022 and then at the end of the school year in May 2023. The so-called CHIPS-test (Children’s Problem Solving Test) measures the level of cognitive development and its third set of tasks focuses on logical and abstract thinking, which is typical for children older than 10 years. The Disjunctive Reaction Time Test II (DRT II) is aimed at diagnostic attention and reaction time.
The third test, Subtest of the Intelligence Structure Test (IST) Numerical Unit (NU) was chosen to assess theoretical numerical thinking. In the experimental group, when comparing the results at the beginning and after the experiment, it was confirmed that prolonged exposure to full-spectrum lighting during the school year plays a significant role in increasing the level of attention, working speed, as well as in increasing the level of cognitive development with emphasis on logical thinking, including abstract problem solving. For the control group students, statistical significance between testing at the beginning and end of the experiment was confirmed only for the DRC II test.
During the summer months, there was no need to use artificial lighting in the classrooms and therefore the expected improvement was predicted to be mainly due to the time of year and the sufficient natural daylight at classrooms. This test was also chosen to demonstrate the seasonal differences between the groups and to highlight the importance of good quality full-spectrum lighting inspired by sunlight, particularly in autumn and winter when natural sunlight is insufficient. Pupils in the experimental group with full-spectrum lighting achieved up to 83% of the maximum test scores for attention and working speed in the winter months, compared to less than 30% for the control group with conventional lighting. In addition, most of the students in the experimental class that worked during the school year under full-spectrum LED lighting passed the entrance exam to bilingual high schools, unlike the students in the other classes. The school principal confirmed that this is a unique achievement.
Inspired by nature
During the winter months, when daylight is insufficient, it is therefore of the up-most importance to emphasise sufficient classroom lighting with suitable electric light, ideally of a spectral composition that mimics the light conditions of a sunny days.
Link to purchase INO School lighting.
Mgr. Tereza Ulrichová, Spectrasol
Literature:
Nosko, „The Effect of Bio-Optimised Light in The School Environment on The Cognitive Functions of Pupils”, ASSRJ, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 236–253, May 2024, doi: 10.14738/assrj.115.16943, https://journals.scholarpublishing.org/index.php/ASSRJ/article/view/16943