Human-Centered, Multisensory Classroom Refurbishment and the School Experience of Early Adolescents: A Quasi-Experimental Post-Occupancy Evaluation

The physical and multisensory conditions of classrooms influence students’ well-being, motivation, and learning, yet much of the available evidence comes from high-income contexts and from primary education, and it rarely evaluates integrated interventions in settings with fewer spatial and social resources. This study assessed the effect of a human-centered, multisensory architectural classroom intervention, developed through a participatory process with students and teachers, on students’ life satisfaction, school satisfaction, school motivation, and classroom satisfaction in a public school in Greater Concepción, Chile. A quasi-experimental repeated-measures design with three assessments (baseline, pre-intervention, and post-intervention) was used with students aged 12 to 14; the intervention was implemented in two classrooms of traditional typology (54.5 m2 each) and analyzed as a single condition. The results showed significant improvements in classroom satisfaction and school motivation, whereas the more global dimensions, school satisfaction and life satisfaction, did not change. The effects followed a proximity gradient: they were largest for the dimension most directly linked to the modified space and attenuated toward the more distal dimensions. The findings indicate that classroom-scale interventions were associated with improvements in the school experience of adolescents. Moving toward a design that goes beyond the merely functional to incorporate the sensory dimension and elements that afford flexibility and choice within constrained spatial conditions constitutes a concrete pathway to improve that experience, particularly in resource-limited public schools.