Natural light improves the Learner Experience
Is natural lighting important to corporate learning?
Natural light has a beneficial effect on adult learners. It improves the learner experience and increases knowledge transfer. Yet, this is something that is often ignored by people when booking space for learning programs.
Our downtown Toronto hybrid meeting and training space has natural light. We have a 40 foot wall of windows bringing light into our space. It’s one of the major factors we considered when choosing our location.
But really, how important is natural lighting to adult learning?
Many studies have been done to show the positive impact that natural light makes on our ability to learn and retain knowledge. Although most studies have been done with university and college students, the same effect holds true with adult learners.
Here are three simple reasons natural lighting is important to corporate learning.
#1 NATURAL LIGHTING CAN HELP MAKE YOU SMARTER
In a study done by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, people performed 10 to 25% better on tests of mental function and memory recall when they worked in a room with daylight and a view, compared to those without.
In another study conducted by the California Energy Commission, students with the most daylighting in their classrooms progressed 20% faster on math tests and 26% faster on reading tests in one year than in those with the least. Even though this study was on students there is no reason to believe a similar effect would happen with adult learners.
#2 NATURAL LIGHTING INCREASES FOCUS
Natural light during both the morning and evening has been shown to increase concentration and focus.
According to another study, people who spend more time in natural lighting than in artificial lighting have increased productivity and alertness. It has also been shown that natural light during the morning and evening increases focus and concentration. Why? Because production of melatonin is influenced directly by natural light. In turn, melatonin affects alertness.
“Most people spend their days within buildings under different lighting environments, which range from daylight to artificial light only,” said Mirjam Münch of the Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. “At most workplaces, there is a mixed situation between the two principal light sources.” Münch added, “For the impact of light perception on nonvisual functions such as alertness, mood, and performance, those lighting conditions are likely to significantly contribute to modulation of alertness and productivity via the retinohypothalamic tract and melanopsin-dependent pathways.”
As a follow up, Münch and her colleagues conducted a study to determine how natural and artificial light affected cognitive functioning in the evening.
The study had participants, aged between 19 and 25 years, exposed to either daylight or artificial light for six hours per day for two days. In the evenings, researchers measured melatonin and cortisol levels. They also rated sleepiness and cognitive functioning. Münch’s findings?
“In summary, even short-term lighting conditions during the afternoon had an impact on cognitive task performance in the evening.”
# 3 ADULT LEARNERS WANT NATURAL LIGHTING
A survey by HR advisory firm Future Workplace called “The Employee Experience” uncovered something very interesting, and often overlooked. In a research poll of 1,614 North American employees, they found that access to natural light and views of the outdoors are the number one desired attribute of the workplace environment.
47% of employees surveyed admitted they feel tired or very tired from the absence of natural light or a window at their office, and 43% report feeling gloomy because of the lack of light. The study also found that the absence of natural light and outdoor views hurts the employee experience.
And this spills over into the learner experience. Learners like natural light, it makes them feel better, happier and more receptive to learning.
NATURAL LIGHTING IMPROVES YOUR ROI ON THE LEARNING BUDGET
This is important to consider when thinking about the physical environment chosen for an adult learning session. Lighting, along with comfortable seating and proper air flow and temperature have a profound effect on knowledge retention as the day progresses. The longer the learning program goes, the more important these factors become.
Running an all day training program in a facility that isn’t purpose built for adult learning reduces your ROI on the program. You’d be better off to run the program in a ½ day format. Otherwise you’re just throwing good money after bad.
The next time you are looking for a Toronto meeting room for a learning program or strategy session, try our Learner First learning studio. It was built with the adult learning experience in mind.
Here are some of the articles we referred to when writing this post, in case you’d like more reading.
https://elemental.green/15-reasons-you-need-as-much-natural-lighting-in-your-home-as-possible/
https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/natural-lighting-increases-productivity-0104112/