providing acoustic comfort in the classroom using double-glazed windows and its effect on students stress

Background: students spend a considerable amount of time at school; thus, noise pollution can have negative physical and emotional effects on them. this study aimed to determine the association between reduced noise by changing singleglazed to doubleglazed windows and stress level changes among students. methods: we included 384 male high school students in this study to specify the effect of noise reduction (using doubleglazed windows) on classroom stress in shiraz, 20182019 academic years. the participants were randomly selected from schools exposed to unauthorized noise; they were divided into control (n=192) and intervention groups (n=192). using the perceived stress scale (pss), we assessed stress perception in a semiexperimental pretest and posttest design. moreover, ut353 digital sound level meter was used to measure noise pollution. results: the mean pretest and posttest scores for the intervention group were 29.30+6.878 and 24.88+8.711, respectively. the acoustic comfort induced by doubleglazed windows could significantly decrease the level of stress (p <0.001). the researchers used mean statistics and standard deviation for descriptive data analysis and independent ttest for inferential analysis. the results showed a significant difference between the intervention and control groups. conclusions: replacing singleglazed windows with doubleglazed ones improved the acoustic condition of the classroom, thereby reducing the stress of male high school students.