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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of school facility conditions on the delivery of instruction from the perspective of school principals in the USA.

By employing a multivariate correlational research design, the paper empirically investigated whether the quality of ten facility conditions affects the delivery of instruction after controlling three school and three student characteristics that also may affect the delivery of instruction. The conceptual framework of this paper envisions the physical capital, along with the human and social capitals, as one of the three main core elements for effective teaching and learning. The conceptual framework of the study incorporated facility conditions identified by Schneider and Castaldi. Consistent with the literature, the conditions of school facilities in the conceptual framework included mainly cosmetic factors. The FRSS 88: Public School Principals' Perceptions of Their Facilities: Fall 2005 data set of the National Center for Educational Statistics is the main data source of the study. The data set included a nationally representative sample of 1,037 public school principals.

The findings of the study indicated that six of the ten facility conditions are statiscally and positively associated with the delivery of instruction. These six facility conditions significantly predicted the delivery of instruction after controlling other extraneous or plausible variables. Facility conditions accounted for 43 percent of the explained variation on the delivery of instruction with a medium‐sized effect.

Because of its service‐oriented nature, the human factor has long been the primary focus of educational research. Organisational settings, where workers function and interact, and the contextual factors that shape organisational behaviour have attracted little attention among educational researchers. The findings of this study provided much‐needed evidence to educators, policymakers, and legislators who are in dire need of research‐based guidance on the effects of school facilities. The paper supported the notion that educational facilities do matter and they affect the delivery of instruction. The findings of the study may also have implications to other fields (i.e. heath, business, and manufacturing) in regard to the effects of facility conditions on the effectiveness of personnel at any workplace.

This paper contributes to the field by offering a nationwide perspective of school principals on the effects of school facilities on teaching.

There is widespread and long-lasting worry related to the condition of public purpose buildings and public investments. Public buildings make up a huge capital stock and proper maintenance and investments are important for public policy. Notwithstanding, the relevant research literature is fragmented and spread across several fields. The authors take stock of earlier and more recent research and suggest some ideas for future research.

The authors summarize the relevant literature and discuss implications of various theoretical assumptions and empirical findings for maintenance and investment strategies.

A better understanding of the role of public facilities in public service provision is important. Relevant topics for further research are the impact of technological changes, both in buildings and service provision, economic issues including macroeconomic shocks and trends that influence public funding and demand for public services, and advancing maintenance scheduling models to consider a portfolio of facilities. Further, the empirical literature suffers from a lack of relevant data to gauge both the condition of public facilities and their impact on public services.

There is widespread worry that poor facilities adversely impact public services, but the size and significance of this impact are an open question. This paper contributes by taking stock of the existing research on public facilities, maintenance, and investments, and suggest ideas for further work.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that taking the educational purposes of schools into account is central to understanding the place and importance of facilities to learning outcomes. The paper begins by observing that the research literature connecting facility conditions to student outcomes is mixed. A closer examination of this literature suggests that when school facilities are measured from an engineering perspective, little connection to learning outcomes is evident. By contrast, when school facilities are rated in terms of educational functions, a connection to learning outcomes is apparent.

The paper provides an empirical test of the educational relevance of how school facilities are measured. Using the schools in a Canadian division, the condition of school facilities was measured in two ways, including both conventional, engineering tools and a survey capturing principals' assessments. School facility ratings using these alternate measurement methods were correlated with schools' quality of teaching and learning environments (QTLE).

Two central findings emerge. First, engineering assessments of facilities are unrelated to the QTLE in schools. Second, educators' assessments of school facilities are systematically related to the QTLE in schools.

The findings indicate that more research needs to be directed at developing sound tools for measuring school facilities in terms of their educational relevance. In addition, school administrators need to reconsider policies that devalue the contribution that facilities make to learning outcomes.

All built facility begins to show signs of deterioration immediately after the facility is completed and put to use, thus necessitating routine maintenance. Increase in defects due to age, usage, and other factors, requires extensive maintenance activities known as renovation. The data used for a typical renovation plan can be collected using the condition assessment (CA) tool which depends on physical inspection of the defects or through a facility condition index which hinges on harnessing and analyzing the information in the operational history of the facility. The purpose of this paper is to examine the quality of a typical renovation plan using both tools.

The single case study of qualitative research was adopted. The data were collected through the principle of semi-structured questionnaire complemented with interviews and document analysis. The documents include periodic operational reports and a CA report used for planned renovation exercise of the Facilities Management (FM) Unit in a higher education institution in South Africa.

The findings revealed that although the FM Unit produces periodic reports, but there was no evidence of detailed analysis of the reports. Therefore, the programmed renovation exercises are based purely on the information from a CA.

This research is a single site case study of qualitative research; the data collected are limited and not sufficient for generalization of the results. Furthermore, the lack of record of the analysis of the operational history in the periodic reports negatively affected the computation of facilities condition index (FCI). Thus it was not possible to demonstrate the strength of FCI over CA from empirical information.

The quality of a typical renovation plan is influenced by the tool used for data collection. Although the CA tool is commonly used, experience shows that the renovation exercise developed from such records is prone to many execution setbacks, such as frequent scope changes and the associated cost and time overruns. These setbacks can be minimized if the FCI is used as the tool for data collection.

This paper aims to investigate which concerns are most important for local government facility managers in Norway.

The authors analyze a survey dataset covering about two-thirds of all Norwegian local governments and 80 per cent of the Norwegian population. The authors consider both descriptive statistics and results from an ordered probit regression analysis.

Facility managers are most concerned about weak fiscal conditions and lack of political priority of facility management, and local governments reporting public buildings in good condition generally have fewer and less serious concerns. Further, managers in municipalities with a solid fiscal balance are less concerned both about how tight fiscal conditions and lack of political prioritization affect facility management. Managers in municipalities with a centralized facility management structure are less concerned that the organizational structure of the facility management is sub-optimal. Finally, managers in populous municipalities have less concern about tight fiscal conditions, organizational structure and recruitment issues.

The paper offers insights on which concerns are most important among local government facility managers and how these concerns vary with local government characteristics. These insights are valuable in the ongoing debate over best facility management practice and in facility management policy work.

Insufficient investment in facilities management organizations lead to postponement of major repairs and replacements of facilities. Lack of centralized information within an organization on the assessment of deficiencies and conditions in the facilities causes these projects to be carried out at the cost of critical replacements and repairs. This paper aims to describe a facilities condition assessment methodology and a tool.

In this paper, the physical condition and maintenance deficiencies of heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) type of equipment are assessed at its component level using failure checkpoints. The existing conditions of six cooling towers located at West Virginia University were assessed at the component level and an overall condition score was generated by the tool.

The tool helped to assess checkpoints on the components and identify the potential risk component and its impact.

When facilities managers initiate this structured assessment methodology based on a periodic frequency, the facilities availability and life is maximized apart from reducing overall risk.

The contributions of this paper include the use of a common and comprehensive methodology for HVAC physical condition assessments and risk assessment of component failure impact.

This paper eliminates the most evident scoring limitations in the literature such as “equal numbers or ties,” “summation of lower priority scores exceeding the higher priority score,” and the need for a “cost estimator.” A unique formula was determined for the scoring technique.

In light of evidence of low levels of maintenance of public buildings, this paper aims to investigate trends and determinants of public building conditions in Norwegian local governments.

The authors consider data from surveys and public records in regression analyses.

On average, the condition of Norwegian local public facilities has improved slightly in the period 2004-2016. The survey data suggest substantial fluctuations in building conditions and a negative relationship between building conditions in 2004 and 2016. Local governments with poor building conditions in 2004 had higher investment in the following years. The authors find no systematic relationship between the conditions in 2004 and maintenance expenditures in subsequent years. They conclude that if maintenance levels are too low, the results suggest that investment levels are too high. Further, they find that both political and fiscal factors are important in explaining building conditions.

The authors provide insight into determinants and trends of building conditions in Norwegian local governments. The results hint at an unhealthy balance between maintenance spending and public investments.

The purpose of this paper is to present previous studies and reports which have shown that most school buildings in the USA suffer from inadequate physical conditions. As American school buildings become “older”, it is essential for every school district to have an effective facilities maintenance management plan of its facilities. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to identify and analyze how facilities maintenance is planned, managed and carried out by large public schools in the State of Texas, USA.

Guidelines taken from the literature drove the development of a survey questionnaire, which was sent to 320 school facilities managers from four major metropolitan areas in Texas. Elementary, middle and high schools with enrollments of 750 students or more were selected from the Texas Education Agency's web site. The responses were received in a secure database established at an online web site, where participants' identities were kept confidential.

The overall findings of this research indicate a poor quality of facilities maintenance management practices exists in large public schools in Texas. Nevertheless, the study also found that schools following the guidelines set by the US Department of Education tend to have comparatively more detailed and contemporary information about their facility's condition. As a result, these schools are able to predict the projected needs of the school, including its maintenance needs.

The results of this study can be adapted and used by any public school that would like to provide high‐quality school facilities for healthy and supportive teaching and learning environments.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the diffusion of facilities management (FM) as a sustainable tool to facility performance within the perspective of public universities in Nigeria.

A review of the literature reveals the practices of FM in both the educational and institutional buildings. Factors influencing the practices and strategies for sustaining facilities condition were evaluated. Data were collected through a well-structured questionnaire administered on both the technical and managerial officers in charge of FM in Nigeria public universities. Data collected were subjected to both the descriptive and inferential statistical tools.

The FM practice in the Nigeria public universities is found to be lagging behind private sector experience, despite the significant benefits of FM to learning process. In particular, passive actions are being taken to manage facilities, even when most are obsolete and deteriorated. Critical challenges to FM practice are low level of technology, poor funding and poor policy implementation. Outsourcing of technical personnel is essential to ameliorate the conditions of public universities’ facilities in Nigeria.

This paper helps policymakers and administrators to know the condition of facilities and understand the FM practice in the Nigerian public universities.

Reactive/passive practice is the norm in FM of public universities in Nigeria. However, outsourcing of technical personnel in FM has a great potential for functional facilities in public universities.

The purpose of this paper is to identify key variables that affect the quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs) and to derive equations to measure these indicators. Qualitative KPIs are also discussed in terms of the aspects that need to be covered while carrying out qualitative performance assessment.

A combination of literature and an industry opinion-based qualitative approach is applied to develop equations to calculate the quantifiable KPIs. A facility asset management consulting firm is included in the process of deriving the equations. Key aspects of a facility's qualitative performance assessment are categorized and discussed by performing a literature review.

Mathematical expressions for core performance indicators are presented and discussed along with key variables. In addition, the information needed to quantify these core indicators is also discussed.

This paper represents the second step towards establishment of a relevant list of quantifiable and measurable core KPIs, which were identified and categorized in Part I of this paper. In Part II, the authors derive equations to quantify the core KPIs. Future research is needed to use relevant information from industry for validating these equations.

A need for a concise and relevant list of KPIs was identified in Part I of this paper. Part II provides an approach to quantify the core KPIs based on information that is available in the industry. This research will help facility management professionals in not only selecting the indicators of choice, but also quantifying them based on available information yielding enhanced facility management decisions with measurable facility performance outcomes.

This paper provides equations and variables to measure a facility's physical, functional and financial performance using both quantitative and qualitative performance assessments.