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Description
Designing supportive and comfortable learning spaces requires an understanding of how children perceive their classroom sound environment. While research on classroom acoustics has traditionally focused on objective parameters, studies addressing children’s perceptual responses remain limited and methodologically unclear, due to the frequent use of attributes adapted from adult-oriented questionnaires, along with heterogeneous scales. This paper presents the development of a child-centered questionnaire for assessing acoustic perception in primary school classrooms. The study employed a multi-stage approach to ensure age appropriateness. A set of perceptual attributes was initially identified through a systematic literature review and subsequently refined through focus group discussions with children. This process ensured that the attributes reflected children’s own language and experiential understanding. A semantic differential scale was created by organizing the final set of attributes into 32 bipolar pairs. A 9-point rating scale was developed, combining visual anchors, verbal descriptors, and illustrative characters to support comprehension across different age groups. The use of pictorial elements enhances engagement and facilitates more reliable responses from younger children. The resulting questionnaire provides the basis for the development of a classroom soundscape model, serving as a structured and accessible tool for capturing children’s perceptions of classroom sound environments.