Conducting School Environment Evaluation: Using Open Source Tools from the Coalition for the Advanced Understanding of School Environments (CAUSE)

Webinar Date: December 3, 2025

1 AIA LU | HSW

In this course, we will examine the purpose of post-occupancy evaluations (POEs) in K-12 learning environments. There are unique project outcomes associated with K-12 school projects – like learning and instructional practice – that require specialized attention to measure. The Coalition for the Advanced Understanding of School Environments (CAUSE) represents a collaborative effort across designers of school environments to create a shared toolkit for evaluating education-specific outcomes in POEs. This webinar will introduce CAUSE, provide a walkthrough of the freely available CAUSE User Guide that provides survey tools for use with both teachers and students that anyone can use, and results from the pilot studies conducted in Austin, TX as part of the tool development process. Attendees will learn how to use the CAUSE framework to conduct their own studies, what kinds of design insights they can obtain from their research, and how to engage the CAUSE tools as part of more comprehensive POEs that extend to other dimensions of design performance.

Learning Objectives:

1. Explain how research illustrates that school design is connected to student health, learning, and mental well-being.
2. Describe the ways a CAUSE POE gives design feedback related to student safety, wellness, and performance.
3. Describe examples of how they can analyze data from a CAUSE-based POE to generate design insights connected to key adult outcomes like efficacy and job satisfaction.
4. Align their use of the CAUSE tools with POE tools like environmental sensors and sustainability metrics to construct a comprehensive POE looking at facility performance across multiple domains.

Presenters:

		Raechel French, PhD, CAUSE Co-Founder, CAUSE Dr. Raechel French is the Director of Planning for Austin ISD with nearly a decade of experience in the AEC industry. She holds dual Bachelors in Environmental Design and Psychology and a Masters in Facility Planning & Management and Organizational Behavior. Following a Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship, she completed her PhD through the University of Melbourne's Graduate School of Education, focusing on how to better support leaders and teachers in transitioning to more innovative learning spaces.
		Michael Ralph, PhD, Director of Research, Multistudio Dr. Michael C. Ralph is the Director of Research with Multistudio. He is also teaching faculty at the University of Kansas in the Department of Educational Psychology. He uses his background as both a K-12 and higher education instructor to connect research to issues of practice and experience in classrooms, with a focus on equitable application of quantitative methods as a tool for improved teaching and dismantling barriers to success for historically marginalized groups.
		Renae Mantooth, PhD, Education Research Lead, HKS, Inc. Dr. Renae Mantooth leads research efforts for the Education practice at HKS. Her passion for design research and scholarship is centered around people through inclusive practices. She works to expand the breadth of knowledge that explores human behavior, motivation, and well-being in educational settings towards a more evidence-based and equity-centered future. Outside of HKS, Renae is an Assistant Professor of the Practice in the College of Design at North Carolina State University.