Education Commons^™

How Do Classroom-Turnover Times Depend On Lecture-Hall Size?, Joseph Benson, Mariya Bessonov, Korana Burke, Simone Cassani, Maria-Veronica Ciocanel, Daniel B. Cooney, Alexandria Volkening

Publications and Research

Academic spaces in colleges and universities span classrooms for 10 students to lecture halls that hold over 600 people. During the break between consecutive classes, students from the first class must leave and the new class must find their desks, regardless of whether the room holds 10 or 600 people. Here we address the question of how the size of large lecture halls affects classroom-turnover times, focusing on non-emergency settings. By adapting the established social-force model, we treat students as individuals who interact and move through classrooms to reach their destinations. We find that social interactions and the separation time …