Poor listening conditions in classrooms impair speech comprehension, (Klatte et al. 2010) memory (Kjellberg et al. 2008; Ljung et al. 2009; Ljung & Kjellberg 2009) and increase annoyance and the mental effort needed to listen (Shield & Dockrell 2003). Listening conditions are determined by a number of factors but can mainly be attributed to room acoustic qualities, and the background sound determined by outdoor or indoor noise sources. In assessing listening conditions there are several indexes based on room acoustic measures, however, these require measurements on site and are hence expensive and time consuming to carry out. Furthermore a good rating alone may not sufficiently quantify a favorable communication according to Morimoto et al. (2004), that introduced the subjective rating of listening difficulty.
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