Limitations
Upon completion of this study a number of limitations were identified and are further discussed to help in developing future research. While the survey instrument was adapted from a reputable source, this form of research method is notorious for low response rates; that is, people fail to return them (Kumar, 2005, p. 130). An average response rate of 33 percent was collected from the FTE and transient users in both buildings, however, only 12 percent of the transient users responded from Building A. In order to obtain higher response rates, it is recommended that incentives be provided to building users, particularly when working with collegiate populations. Additionally, the assessment of satisfaction levels in this study was limited to the experience of users in two LEED-gold higher education buildings. With a small sample size it is not possible to form a generalization of the IEQ of LEED certified higher education buildings as a whole. Thus, future studies would benefit from a larger sample and could expand to include certified buildings from different rating systems. Finally, this study was limited to obtaining the average satisfaction rating from FTE and transient user groups. In order to further enrich findings, collected data may be analyzed by factor analysis in order to identify differences between user types.