Design and validation of thermal comfort questionnaire using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses

Within the field of indoor environmental quality, several objective and subjective techniques have been developed to monitor conditions and provide user feedback. One such approach features occupant-centred questionnaires, indicating different aspects of comfort, including thermal, visual, acoustic or related to air quality. This study introduces the development and validation of such a questionnaire to optimise its completion rate and meaningfulness. Exploration and confirmatory analysis techniques were applied to identify the questionnaire's underlying structures, and the models’ reliability and validation secured the validity of our findings. Questionnaire factors appeared to be connected to different aspects of temperature and humidity, each accounting for a significant portion of response variability, indicating that the questionnaire items effectively capture multiple dimensions within these constructs. The proposed thermal comfort questionnaire was also found to be reliable, with room for improvement through additional testing of individual elements. Overall, the questionnaire serves its intended purpose and can be used in subsequent analysis to improve the indoor environments of building occupants. The validation logic presented here, an essential step in the process of monitoring and building improvements, can serve as a set of guidelines and be replicated by other studies employing subjective feedback collection in the indoor environmental quality realm.