The Relationship Between School Building Condition and Student Achievement: A Critical Examination of the Literature

Abstract

Research has produced a corpus of studies dealing with the relationship between school building condition and student achievement while reporting positive results. Yet, other studies have been completed that report no significant difference in achievement scores from students in buildings in poor and good condition. The differences in research findings may lie in the methodology employed. The most important difference is in how the building is assessed and the instrument utilized. An instrument that reports those building elements that have a direct research tie to student performance provides more accurate data on the actual learning condition of a school building, resulting in more significant findings