Post Occupancy Evaluation tools (POE) adapted to pre-school children with physical, hearing, and visual disabilities

Author(s)

Tania Pietzschke Abate

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU/SBI)
• Defense date: 2011-06-20

Examining board members

Rosaria Ono; Gleice Virginia Medeiros de Azambuja Elali; Doris Catharine Cornelie Knatz Kowaltowski; Sheila Walbe Ornstein; Cibele Haddad Taralli

• Advisor: Rosaria Ono; Maria Elisabete Lopes

Abstract

This study aims at developing Post-Occupational Evaluation tools (POE) for students with physical, hearing, and visual disabilities. The objective consists of elaborating theoretical and practical references for future studies related to POE in schools that consider the opinion of students with disabilities and aim at qualitative conditions of use and inclusion. POE has been adopted as a method to assess accessibility, environmental comfort, asset security and fire safety, among other types of evaluation, in school environments. POE consists of applying a range of methods and techniques in the built environment in order to assess the users\" satisfaction in relation to it (ORNSTEIN; BRUNA; ROMÉRO; 1995). The results of data designing and application are aligned with the aims of the Quality and Performance in the Built Environment research group, of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo (FAUUSP): playful interview and questionnaire adapted to pre-school children with physical, hearing and visual disabilities based on results of tools applied in the head and teachers (interviews) as well as on the observation of students in three special schools5 located in the city of São Paulo. The field research was conducted in two phases: between August and December of 2009 (pre-testing) and of 2010 (validation). The first phase of the field research focused on the practical evaluation of the chosen method, including reception and participation of students involved and prediction of mistakes to improve tools for the new application, which occurred in 2010, in order to validate them, as well as to confirm the stated premises. The study of multiple incorporated cases has been adopted (YIN, 2005), which is based on various sources of evidence and benefits from previous development of theoretical propositions to perform data collection and analysis, being each school the object of an individual case study. This research presents qualitative and multidisciplinary approach and is based on theoretical presuppositions of architecture and POE; education; pedagogy; medicine; sociology and environmental psychology, among other areas. It has been observed that the limitations associated to each disability determine specificities in the adaptation and application of data collection instruments to assess the satisfaction of subjects in relation to pre-school environment. 5 A special school or a school for special education offers specialized education outside the regular school system, exclusively for disabled students who, due to their specific needs, cannot be integrated in regular classes. Each special school is skilled in one type of disability and its association with other deficiencies, limitations, conditions, or disorders. 6 The usual term is person with disability. The words chosen as keywords are based on the Controlled Vocabulary of the Integrated System of Libraries - SIBI (UNIVERSITY OF SÃO PAULO, 2006) (AU)