Study finds exam hall affects candidates' performance
WeirdNews
Height of ceiling of exam centre also decides how a candidate will perform in exam
(Web Desk) - How you perform in exams depends entirely on your preparation and your understanding of the subject matter. We have believed in this fact for the longest time.
However, a new study says that this might not be the case entirely. Research conducted by the University of South Australia and Deakin University says that the room in which you are taking the exam also has an effect on your performance.
According to the study, the height of the ceiling of the exam centre also decides how a candidate will perform in the exam.
The team compared the results of 15,400 undergraduate students at an Australian university between 2011 and 2019 based on the height of the examination room's ceiling.
The results showed that those who took the exam in a room with a high ceiling got lesser scores.
Isabella Bower, who led the study, said that the number of students present in the room, the temperature and air quality fluctuation also affect our brains and body which consequently can have an impact on performance.
VIRTUAL REALITY TESTS
Bower also carried out virtual reality tests to measure the brain activity of the participants based on the types of rooms they were in.
Attaching electrodes to the scalp, she measured the brain's response in different room sizes. She also checked for changes in heart rate and breathing when the rooms were changed.
Bower and her team noticed that in a larger room, the brain started acting in the way it does when concentrating on a difficult task. So does the size of a room really impact performance?
"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," Bower said.
More research is still being conducted to understand if what Bower learned could actually be true, and if yes, then it can play a major role in the examination systems across the world.
