Background: Educational environments can have environmental conditions that are incompatible with the needs of students, compromising their well-being and affecting their performance.
Objective: To identify the environmental variables that influence the performance of university students and measure this influence through an experiment in indoor environments.
Methods: The study applied an experimental methodology for three consecutive days in seven educational environments located in different regions of Brazil, measuring the environ-mental conditions, the students' perception of the environment, and their cognitive performance. The impact of environmental variables and environmental perception on student performance was analyzed using Generalized Linear Models and a Structural Equation Model.
Results: Students who took the test at air temperatures between 22.4°C and 24.7°C had a 74.20% chance of performing better than those outside this range. Air temperatures between 26.2°C and 29°C were associated with an 86% chance of taking less time to complete the test. High illuminance levels increased the chance of taking longer to answer the test by 41.7%.
Conclusions: Three environmental variables (relative humidity, lighting and air temperature) and two perceptual dimensions (light and thermal perception) directly influence student performance.
Keywords: Students; classroom; environmental variables; indoor environments; perception; performance.