A method for determining classroom seating arrangements by using a genetic algorithm

Students in a classroom often feel an uncomfortable situation in classroom seating arrangements. This study focuses on the effects of classroom seating arrangements changes on motivation of learning and on interaction between students. In order to determine the optimal classroom seating arrangements, a genetic algorithm is applied on the basis of the questionnaire results and the analysis of the observation of behaviors between students. Our optimization problem is to determine the combination of classroom seating arrangements in such a way that the minimum of fitness rates of all students is as large as possible. Based on our proposed classroom seating arrangements, we carried out experiments at a national college of technology in Japan. It is found from the experiments that satisfaction of each student is higher than the traditional classroom seating arrangements. It is also found that each student is actually comfortable in the classroom because the relationships between students are very well.