Plants increase student satisfaction

SAN MARCOS, Texas, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Plants in classrooms affect how students rate their teacher, U.S. horticulturalists have found.

Members of the American Society for Horticultural Sciences say students in a classroom with plants were more satisfied with "learning," "instructor enthusiasm" and "instructor organization" than students in the control classroom. However, student performance did not seem to be affected.

The study, published in HortScience, included 385 students divided into three sets of two classes taking the same coursework taught by the same professor during one semester. The experimental groups' classroom had an assortment of tropical plants. The control group of students' classroom had no plants.

"Our study supports other research showing that plants have value beyond aesthetics in interior environments, including promoting positive feelings in university students," Tina Marie Waliczek of Texas State University in San Marcos said in a statement. "Our results showed that interior plants appeared to have the greatest impact on students who were in the classroom that had no other natural elements. Results also showed that interior plants can be a suitable alternative in some cases to architectural elements such as windows."