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Post-COVID-19 ergonomic school furniture design under fuzzy logic
1BOTAS, Transit Pipeline Manager, Ankara, Turkey ORCID: 0000-0003-1927-8208;
Insights
This study developed new ergonomic classroom furniture for primary students, considering anthropometrics and COVID-19 safety. New designs address gender differences and improve student well-being.
Area of Science:
- Ergonomics
- Human Factors Engineering
- Educational Furniture Design
Background:
- Incorrect sitting posture and poorly designed classroom furniture contribute to musculoskeletal pain in children.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly influenced furniture production and classroom environments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To design ergonomic classroom furniture for primary students using a fuzzy-based approach.
- To integrate anthropometric data, safety, health, well-being, socio-psychological aspects, and post-COVID policies into furniture design.
Main Methods:
- Assessed 2049 primary school students (7-10 years old) for anthropometric dimensions, adhering to COVID-19 policies.
- Employed quantitative analysis including t-tests, ANOVA, and regression.
- Developed a fuzzy mathematical model (fuzzy-AHP, fuzzy-TOPSIS, fuzzy-VIKOR) for furniture design calculations.
Main Results:
- Identified significant gender-based differences in anthropometry; existing furniture dimensions (e.g., bench height) were found to be unsuitable.
- Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision Making (FMCDM) highlighted "COVID-19 Criteria," "Ergonomic Criteria," and "Socio-Psychological Aspect" as key design considerations.
- Proposed new dimensions for student seating and tables, incorporating post-COVID protocols and ergonomic principles.
Conclusions:
- School furniture procurement must consider student demographics (gender, age) and post-COVID policies.
- The study emphasizes the need for adaptive and safe classroom furniture to support student health and learning.
- The COVID-19 pandemic necessitates a re-evaluation of school furniture to ensure a healthy and conducive learning environment.
Background:
Because of wrong sitting position, children have back-pain and related musculoskeletal pain (MPD). Due to inappropriate designed class furniture by not taking into account the children's anthropometric measurements have negative effect on children musculoskeletal systems. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis has changed the furniture industry's production trends.
Objective:
This study aimed to develop a new fuzzy based design of ergonomic-oriented classroom furniture for primary school students considering the measured anthropometric dimensions of students' safety, health, well-being, i.e. ergonomic criteria, socio-psychological aspect and post-COVID policies.
Methods:
In the study 2049 number of primary school students are assessed considering COVID-19 pandemic policies and their static anthropometric dimensions were measured between 7-10-year-old (between 1st-4th grade students) and descriptive statistics of children among their ages and genders are calculated; mean, standard deviation, percentiles. The data collected from the students were analyzed quantitatively by using Significance Analysis: Mann-Whitney U test statistic, t-test, Regression Analysis and one-way ANOVA. In the study interviews with experts are performed and fuzzy mathematical model (by using fuzzy-AHP, fuzzy-TOPSIS and fuzzy-VIKOR) is developed to calculate Turkey's three schools' furniture.
Results:
Results showed statistically significant differences between two genders. And it is observed that the seating bench height is too high for primary school students and lower than the height of the classroom's blackboard from the floor. Fuzzy Multi Criteria Decision Making Method's (FMCDM) results show that primary school students' ergonomic classroom furniture should be mainly designed by considering "COVID-19 Criteria", "Ergonomic Criteria" and "Socio-Psychological Aspect". Students' existing seating benches and tables are changed by considering post-COVID policies/protocols, Ergonomic Criteria and Socio-Psychological Aspect. And a new seating bench/chair and table's dimensions is proposed in the study.
Conclusions:
Children study at school for long periods and their activities involve long periods of time on their desks in schools. As per the results of the study, it can be concluded that school management must consider the genders, ages of students and take into account the post-COVID policies/protocols while procuring the classroom furniture. The COVID-19 pandemic is the single largest event to have affected children globally in their access to school in recent times; estimates suggest that over 85%of the world's total enrolled learners, 1.5 billion children and youths, have been affected. The coronavirus pandemic also creates dramatic changes for the school furniture.
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