This systematic review focused on the effect of the educational environment design on students’ and teachers’ performance, satisfaction, and wellbeing. Starting from a bulk of 1307 articles, a set of N = 68 empirical papers was selected and organized on the basis of four different content clusters, i.e., architectural building design and aesthetic features, indoor environmental features, classroom design, and school green spaces/outdoor spaces. From the analysis of research findings, the key role of pleasant, warm, and flexible learning environments emerged, for promoting both wellbeing and performance of users. More specifically, the presence of charming colors and pictures, ergonomic furniture, and adequate acoustic, thermal comfort, ventilation, and natural lighting have emerged as important features that school designers should care for. Furthermore, an integration of both indoor and outdoor learning situations showed to be effective for improving students’ learning and wellbeing.

The progressive development of mass communication has allowed the understanding and management of the persuasion process in a more systematic way. However, nowadays, persuasive campaigns still hardly result in behavior changes, particularly around concerns of the promotion of more sustainable lifestyles. Thus, it appears essential to investigate which dimensions are more effective in influencing people’s pro-environmental actions. Relying on the conceptual frameworks provided by the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and the model of goal-directed behavior (MGB), a questionnaire study (n = 380 urban residents) was carried out on the psycho-social antecedents of the intention to use sustainable means of transport. Structural equation modeling showed the mediating role of attitudes toward sustainable transport between ELM persuasion features (i.e., source reliability and argument reliability) and behavioral intention. Positive and negative anticipated emotions, derived from MGB, predict source reliability (the former) and argument reliability (the latter), respectively.

Due to the environmental and health impact of the private transport sector, social scientists have largely focused on psychosocial and contextual factors associated with people's choice over transport means. This study aims to contribute to this line of research by applying a user-centered approach, with the objective of taking into account the specific environmental and social context of the metropolitan area of Cagliari city (Sardinia, Italy). To accomplish this aim, four groups of people were matched according to their shared starting point: car users vs. public transport users (Study 1), and light-rail users vs. non-light-rail users (Study 2). Groups were interviewed using a focus group method. Participants were invited to discuss their everyday travel experiences and to exchange their ideas on different sustainable (e.g., bicycles and public transport) and less sustainable (i.e., private cars) means of transport. Both consolidated drivers/barriers in the field of environmental psychology (e.g., perceived behavioral control, social norms) and public transportation design features (e.g., lighting) have been investigated. Other than highlighting the importance of socio-psychological factors to promote more sustainable transport choices like in previous studies, the present research offers an insight into how these aspects and factors are shaped and experienced in the narratives of residents.

The “user-centered” design perspective (Gifford, 2002) suggests that healthcare places should improve their environmental quality in order to both meet the users’ needs and become “more humane” care environments, facilitating a higher level of patients’ satisfaction, wellbeing, and quality of life. The hospice is a specific category of healthcare, given the specificity of its target population, i.e., the terminal patients. This research aimed (i) to verify the factorial structure of an adapted version of the Perceived Hospital Environment Quality Indicators (PHEQIs, Fornara et al., 2006) for the hospice environment; (ii) to test the reliability of such indicators; and (iii) to detect the association between each indicator and the global satisfaction toward the hospice. Participants (N = 135) were patients, their relatives, and staff of eleven Italian hospices. They had to fill in a questionnaire including items tapping three diverse hospice settings (i.e., external spaces, interior common spaces, and interior private spaces). The confirmatory factor analysis run for each scale produced six reliable Hospice PHEQIs. As expected, significant relationships between most of them and the overall users’ satisfaction toward the hospice environment emerged.