Since its creation in May of 1997, the University of Georgia's School Design and Planning Laboratory (SDPL) has conducted research with the goal of improving the physical learning environments of schools. We want to make schools more "user-friendly." The School Design and Planning Laboratory, now a component of CEAP, has focused attention on the ways schools are designed and how various design patterns influence cognitive learning. The clients of the SDPL are educators, planners, architects, and citizens involved in designing, planning, and constructing schools, pre-kindergarten through grade college (p -16). One long-term aim of the organizations has been to find specific links between student learning, behavior, attitude, self-concept, and the school's physical environment, which is defined through design patterns. Presently we are assessing cognitive learning and its relationship to design patterns. School design patterns are defined as the physical arrangements of the environmental components with which students interact (buildings and all their components, color, the physical context of the school, furniture, landscaping - natural or planned, and equipment). The validity phase of this research project has focused on identifying the design patterns that make up a school setting. Our research is founded on the assumption that interrelationships exist among a student's cognitive learning, behavior, attitude, self-concept, and the school environment. We also assumed that when design characteristics were cataloged, an association between them and student learning could be tested. Behavior, self-concept, and attitudes have been shown to affect student learning. Our reasoning was if scientific proof could be found regarding the design patterns' influence on learning and behavior, then we could make recommendations, with certainty, concerning the appropriate physical arrangements of the schools' environmental components. Student Behavior may be measured in terms of social conduct in the schools. A threatening environment is tied to issues of safety, security, discipline, and hindrance of the learning process. Good behavior is equated to good citizenship, and a physical setting without threats fosters good citizens. Research literature on a student's ability to learn in a threatening environment is clear. For example, Carl R. Rogers (1969) contended that learning is more easily assimilated when external threats are minimized. Learning proceeds faster when the threat to the self is low. Behavior and achievement (academic and nonacademic) influence a student's self-concept. Attitudes influence learning; furthermore self-concept and attitude have been found to be related. An instrument for measuring the relationship between design patterns and student learning is possible to construct given valid components and a reliable scale. The instrument, when constructed and administered properly, will help us say that school design influences student learning. It can also yield an index to actually say "how much". <CLICK on the Design Assessment Scale to view the complete article >