| Good quality of daylighting is believed to be closely related to improvements in student performance and healthier building interiors. However, there has been few researches in this area of scholarship. A literature review reveals that the understanding of the qualitative effects of lighting has been sporadic, and there is a lack of a shared agenda to guide investigators.; The objective of this thesis is to understand some of the relationships between quantity and quality of daylighting, and to develop a research protocol to evaluate daylighting quality in Hong Kong schools. The hypothesis of the research is that interrelationships exist between qualitative measures related to student satisfaction and selected quantitative measures of daylighting in occupied environments.; The approach of this research is a field survey using post occupancy evaluation (POE) methodologies and statistical analysis. The survey focuses on a sample of 1330 local students from 35 classrooms in eight secondary schools in the New Territories of HK. Thematic qualitative studies in terms of questionnaire and selected quantitative measurement are analysed by factor analysis, multivariate regression, and hierarchical model.; This study reveals that there is sufficient daylighting in most existing classrooms of HK. However, daylighting uniformity and appearance within a classroom are identifiable problems, especially in the classrooms with one-sided daylighting. Direct sunlight penetration and reflected glare from the blackboard are the major sources of complaints from the students. The thesis establishes a model of how various criteria affects satisfaction with daylighting. The model indicates that ‘Brightness & amount of daylighting’, ‘Glare in classroom’, ‘Amount of view’, ‘Glare from vertical surfaces’, ‘Sunlight in classroom’, ‘Visibility on vertical surfaces’ and ‘Gender’ of the students were statistically significant correlates with satisfaction with daylighting. And the most important criteria in determining satisfaction with daylighting were ‘brightness’ and ‘amount of daylighting’: an increase of one standard deviation in sum of these two variables produced an increase of 0.67 of a standard deviation in ‘Overall satisfaction with daylighting’. The analyses show that daylight distribution on horizontal surface, orientation, room index, and external buildings were statistically significant in correlation with the students' assessment of daylighting amount and brightness. Moreover, satisfaction with daylighting declined as the window size and reflectance of the interior surfaces increased in the local context. This implies that windows facing outward should be limited in size, especially when there are high-rise residential buildings surrounding the school site.; The thesis suggests that interior daylighting quantity and quality is a function not only of room design, reflecting properties of the interior surfaces, and window size and placing, but also of orientations, site conditions, and even the occupants' attitudes. These factors all make significant contributions to the total lighting in the classroom in various degrees. The study contains concise information to guide designers the important factors when designing school.; In general, this study shows that surveys of subjective response, statistical analysis, as well as physical measurements, are appropriate instruments for the study of the quality of daylighting in high-density urban schools. |
