Ergonomic Assessment of Environmental Conditions in Public Elementary School Classrooms in Quezon City, Philippines
Majority of the conducted studies about public elementary classrooms in the Philippines focuses on anthropometrics but research about the physical environmental factors that affect learning is lacking. With this, an ergonomic assessment of four public ele
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Abstract Majority of the conducted studies about public elementary classrooms in the Philippines focuses on anthropometrics but research about the physical environmental factors that affect learning is lacking. With this, an ergonomic assessment of four public elementary schools in Quezon City, Philippines was conducted to determine if the facilities are able to meet the recommended thermal, acoustical, and lighting ergonomic standards for classrooms and assess if the facilities are conducive environments for learning. Acoustic, thermal, and lighting measurements were collected from four different locations inside each classroom. Simultaneously, a survey of students was conducted to determine their perception of the conditions of their classroom in terms of thermal, visual and acoustical comfort. The results were compared to the general ergonomic standards for classrooms and showed that the environmental conditions of the public elementary school classrooms considered are not conducive for learning based on the thermal, acoustical, and lighting standards.
Keywords Ergonomics Ergonomic assessment Public elementary classrooms Temperature Illuminance Sound
1 Introduction With the growing population in the Philippines, the need for educational facilities has also increased. Due to the country’s limited resources, many public school classrooms are becoming overcrowded and are accommodating more students than their recommended capacities. In the urban areas, where congestion problems are common, larger class sizes and student to teacher ratios are prevalent. Some schools have resorted to conducting multiple shifts of classes in order to accommodate the C.M. De Guzman (&) A. Fajardo F.M. Hubag B. Custodio Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, University of the Philippines, Diliman, 1101 Quezon City, Philippines e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 M. Soares et al. (eds.), Advances in Ergonomics Modeling, Usability & Special Populations, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 486, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41685-4_36
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demand of students. Because of the congestion of students and other factors such as the building structures and locations, the physical environment of the classrooms may be compromised and this can influence the students’ learning. News articles about the current state of public school educational facilities in the Philippines usually describe them as an environment not conducive for learning, but there is a lack of quantitative data to back up these claims. Most studies regarding the classrooms in the country revolve around anthropometrics and take into account the analysis of the furniture used by the students. Research regarding the other environmental factors that contribute to the students’ comfort is lacking. As of 2010, the Department of Education (DepEd) has developed an educational facilities manual for public schools that contains their standards for classrooms in terms of
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