Costs of Acoustics versus Overall Weil-Being in Elementary Classrooms: Who Is the Winner and Why? What Could Be Done for Acoustical Transformation in Classrooms?
Literature suggests that acoustic treatments for classrooms are disregarded because costs of acoustic treatments are calculable and costs of lack of acoustical treatments are incalculable. Researchers suggest that this problem can be addressed only if a proper economic study of classroom acoustics could be performed where extra costs of acoustics is justified by its economic benefit. This researcher agrees with the previous research and suggests life cycle value (LCV) assessment of classroom acoustics. The researcher is developing a LCV evaluation model for classroom acoustics based on the principles and theories of multi criteria decision making (MCDM). The outcome is expected to help offset the current practice of initial-cost decision making, because additional costs per new classroom for good acoustical performance is not high, ranging from $1500 to $4500. But the problem is that what gets measured gets taken care of during the cost-cutting business when a new school comes in over budget.
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