Young Students' Attention and Learning Disrupted in Heavily Decorated Classrooms

Remember when your elementary school classroom was littered with maps, drawings, banners, and flags all over the walls? It was likely aesthetically pleasing, but new research suggests that these decorations can hamper a student's learning.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania conducted a study that looked at whether classroom displays affected a child's focus in a learning environment. A total of 24 kindergarten students were placed in laboratory classrooms for six introductory science lessons of which they were unfamiliar. Three lessons were taught in a heavily decorated classroom and the other three were taught in a relatively barren one.

The results of the study suggested that children in highly decorated classrooms were more distracted than those in the empty ones because they spent more time in off-task engagements and demonstrated smaller learning gains. When placed in the less decorated classrooms, the students answered 55% of the answers correct on their tests compared with 42% when in the heavily decorated rooms.

"We do not suggest by any means that this is the answer to all educational problems. Furthermore, additional research is needed to know what effect the classroom visual environment has on children's attention and learning in real classrooms," said Anna Fisher, the lead author of the study, in a news release. "Therefore, I would suggest that instead of removing all decorations, teachers should consider whether some of their visual displays may be distracting to young children."

Fisher also reiterated that it's a well-known finding in this area that distractability decreases with age. She sought to investigate how younger children are affected by their classroom's appearance since they typically remain in that room for most of the day and are likely fascinated with the bright colors and other aspects that might interest them and distract them from the primary lesson.

Karrie Godwin, one of the researchers alongside Fisher, noted that prior studies and research typically looked at when children are on- or off-task, but not what they're doing while they're off-task. And they found the students spent more time off-task when in a heavily decorated classroom.

The researchers hope to conduct further studies on this subject to arrive at a more definitive answer to properly place children in a desirable learning environment.