Daylighting environments within higher educational buildings play an important role in students’ vision health and learning efficiency. Effective daylighting predictors can help architects and designers to create pleasant daylighting environments. This field study investigates the performance of commonly applied daylighting predictors in Nanjing. Illuminance and luminance data are measured on site. A hundred and thirteen subjective responses to visual comfort and lighting impressions are collected through an online survey. A lighting impression model composed by the affection component, the stimulation component, and the distribution component is suggested. According to the data analysis, general daylighting predictors present comparable performance to customized daylighting predictors with regard to estimations of subjective assessments. The four general daylighting predictors, horizontal illuminance, vertical illuminance, mean luminance of an entire scene, and mean luminance of the horizontal 40° band, are recommended to effectively predict individual probability of reporting daylight sufficiency, desiring to adjust lighting levels, and reporting degrees of daylighting stimulations. •A field study integrating visual comfort and lighting impression was conducted.•A lighting impression model consisted of three components was obtained.•Four daylighting predictors and their logistic regression models were proposed.