An Assessment of End-User Satisfaction of Academic Building Facilities in Tertiary Institutions in Ghana: Perspective of Staff of Wa Polytechnic

Abstract

The overall satisfaction an occupant gets in the use of a building space has an impact on human comfort, behaviour, health and productivity. Majority of the world population has become urbanized with humans spending most of their time working in indoor office environment. However post occupancy evaluation of buildings has not received the much needed research attention. Thus, this study sort to identify the factors that influence end-users satisfaction of academic building facilities at Wa Polytechnic, so that measures to sustain or improve them could be proposed. The study adopted a quantitative research approach where questionnaire bordering on factors which affect users satisfaction were administered to a sample of seventy employees. The data was subsequently analyzed using relative importance index (RII). The study revealed that user’s satisfaction is slightly above average with an RII value of 0.67. The study also established that inadequate trees and green plants around the buildings had an adverse impact on user satisfaction. Also the absence of commercial activities around the building affects user satisfaction. It was thus recommended that a lot more trees and green plants should be planted around buildings to enhance indoor ventilation and users satisfaction. It was also recommended that, social amenities should be provided within the premises of institutions located off main commercial areas in town.

Keywords: Academic buildings, End-user, Indoor environment quality, Satisfaction, Tertiary institutions.

DOI: 10.7176/JRDM/66-05

Publication date:June 30th 2020