Occupants perform various actions to satisfy their physical and non-physical needs
in buildings. These actions greatly affect building operations and thus energy use.
Clearly understanding and accurately modelling occupant behaviour in buildings are
crucial to guide energy-efficient building design and operation, and to reduce the
gap between design and actual energy performance of buildings. To study and understand
occupant behaviour, a cross-sectional questionnaire survey is one of the most useful
tools to gain insights on general behaviour patterns and drivers, and to find connections
between human, social and local comfort parameters. In this study, 33 projects were
reviewed from the energy-related occupant behaviour research literature that employed
cross-sectional surveys or interviews for data collection from the perspective of
findings, limitations and methodological challenges. This research shows that future
surveys are needed to bridge the gaps in literature but they would need to encompass
a multidisciplinary approach to do so as until now only environmental and engineering
factors were considered in these studies. Insights from social practice theories and
techniques must be acquired to deploy robust and unbiased questionnaire results, which
will provide new, more comprehensive knowledge in the field, and therefore occupant
behaviour could be better understood and represented in building performance simulation
to support design and operation of low or net-zero energy buildings.
