Designing a System of Generating Sound Environment for Promoting Verbal Communication in Classroom

摘要

In this study, we developed a system that generates a sound environment that encourages verbal communication among students in a classroom. A lively classroom is essential for student communication. When a classroom is quiet, students may be reluctant to ask questions. Here, the goal is to lower the utterance threshold; thus, we designed a system that plays conversational noise when quietness is detected in a classroom. The playback device comprises a directional microphone, a speaker, and a single-board computer. We introduced the system to an actual classroom and found that changes in sound pressure level were dependent on the location in the classroom and the phases of the lecture. The sound pressure level was investigated and compared relative to subjective student evaluations.