Browsing by Author "Rantanen, Elina"

Aims. The aim of the study was to find out which elements of the physical learning environment are related to the safety and school comfort experienced by students. The study examined how safe and comfortable students found their physical learning environment in general and what elements of the environment were associated with students perceiving the school building and its yard as safe. Previous studies have found that the comfort of a school building has an impact on student safety. Methods. The study used questionnaire data produced by Anne Konu's School Welfare Profile series, which was collected in the 2017–2018 academic year. 10477 students from grades 4-6 answered the survey. The questions in the material were divided into four themes, one of which dealt with the physical conditions of the school. The study focused on analyzing these issues. The questions related to the safety and comfort of the school building and the yard, the comfort of the canteen, the size and temperature of the classroom, the cleanliness, the toilets, and whether one can play in the schoolyard. The data was analyzed using statistical measures, the Spearman’s correlation coefficient, the Mann-Whitney U-test, and the Kruskal-Wallis test. Results and conclusions. Students were mainly satisfied with the safety and comfort of the school building and yard. They were least satisfied with the cleanliness of the school and the toilet facilities. All of the factors in the physical learning environment studied were related to whether students perceived the school building or its yard as safe. Sixth graders differed from students in other grades in all variables and were more dissatisfied than other respondents. Fourth and fifth graders differed in some of the variables. The biggest difference between the different grade levels was in the comfort of the yard. Girls and boys also differed in some of the variables. The most significant differences were in the class temperature at which the girls were more dissatisfied than the boys. The boys, on the other hand, were more dissatisfied with the toilet facilities. Based on the results, the safety and comfort of students will be increased the most by improving the cleanliness of schools and toilets. In addition, the safety and comfort of older students will be improved by adding more things that interest them to the schoolyard. The safety and comfort of girls will be improved by focusing on classroom temperatures and boys by improving toilet facilities. However, the study found that the correlation and the degree of explanation of the physical structures to the safety experienced by students were generally low.