Indoor air quality (IAQ) education can support sustainability education by linking environmental health literacy, school environmental quality, and daily exposure mitigation behaviors. However, comparative evidence on short-term IAQ knowledge change across diverse educational contexts remains limited. In this study, we conducted a pre-test/post-test program evaluation examining immediate IAQ knowledge change among 1408 students (Grades 5–10) in Sri Lanka (n = 395), Nepal (n = 300), Malaysia (n = 314), Indonesia (n = 200), and Guangxi, China (n = 199). The primary outcome was knowledge score gain (post minus pre, 0–100 scale). We used paired t-tests with 95% confidence intervals (CI) and Cohen’s dz, ANOVA and Kruskal–Wallis tests for regional heterogeneity, BH-adjusted Welch pairwise tests, OLS gain models, and sensitivity analyses for post-test zero records. The overall mean score increased from 47.37 to 56.62 (gain +9.25, 95% CI 7.58 to 10.92; p = 2.30 × 10−26; dz = 0.289). Gains differed substantially by region: Nepal +22.25, Indonesia +15.93, Sri Lanka +5.39, Malaysia +5.36, and Guangxi (China) −3.27 (p = 0.081). Region-level heterogeneity was significant (ANOVA F = 26.55, p = 2.98 × 10−21, eta2 = 0.070; Kruskal–Wallis H = 84.95, p = 1.56 × 10−17). Baseline score was the strongest predictor of gain (beta = −0.686, p 0 records increased the overall gain to +12.93, while the Guangxi result remained negative. The findings can serve as short-term program-evaluation evidence suggesting that IAQ sustainability education requires baseline-informed and context-sensitive curriculum adaptation, while future studies should include comparison groups, delayed post-tests, behavioral outcomes, and stronger implementation-fidelity measures.
Deng et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
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