Studying in Environments That Reflect Who We Are: Personalisation, Representativeness and Their Relationship With Motivation and Academic Performance Among University Students / Estudiar en lugares que nos representan: personalización, representatividad y su relación con la motivación y el rendimiento en estudiantado universitario

Personalisation and satisfaction with one’s environment are key concepts in environmental psychology, traditionally studied in workplace settings, while motivation and performance are more frequently analysed in academic settings. This study examined the relationship between representativeness, personalisation of study spaces, satisfaction with the environment, motivation and subjective academic performance among 236 university students. The descriptive results indicated that personalisation is based on categories such as pictures/posters (47.5%) and mementos (40.7%). Significant differences were found in terms of representativeness according to the type of space ( X ² = 14.7; p < .001), with higher levels in private spaces ( M e = 4.00) than in shared spaces ( M e = 3.00). Furthermore, representativeness correlated positively to satisfaction with the environment (τ = .337; p < .001), motivation and subjective performance, although this relationship lost statistical significance in public spaces ( p > .05). The conclusion drawn is that the representativeness of the environment, facilitated by privacy, is a key factor associated with satisfaction and academic processes. These findings suggest the importance of designing flexible educational environments that enable students to express their identity.