Thermal comfort in educational buildings: Future directions regarding the impact of environmental conditions on students' health and performance

Ensuring thermal comfort in educational buildings is nowadays essential for improving health and performance of the students. For the determination of thermal comfort, two main approaches are usually applied: the heat-balance and the adaptive approach. These two approaches have been adopted by standards, but it lacks a specific standard focused on educational buildings, which may present particular conditions. Furthermore, providing a methodology for the analysis of environmental conditions in educational buildings is also fundamental. This paper investigates the main standards for the evaluation of thermal comfort, considering the two different approaches for the assessment of thermal comfort. Then, it analyses the methodology that should be applied in educational buildings for the determination of the environmental conditions. Finally, it provides an overview of the existing field studies, investigates the current problems encountered and highlights the future research that should be carried out in educational buildings.