Collection Occupational hygiene, Issue 25, 1989 year

Labor intensity and ways to improve teacher performance

L.I. Kovaleva

doi

Kiev Research Institute of Occupational Hygiene and Occupational Diseases

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The labor of secondary school teachers was studied using professional and sociological methods (questionnaires, timing, self-timing cards, interviewing). We also studied the functional state of the central nervous system, cardiovascular, muscular systems in the dynamics of the working day and year. The data on the health status of 400 teachers were analyzed.

Studying the time budget of teachers using the auto-timing method revealed a long total duration of work. In addition to the normative workload, which teachers in elementary grades have 24 hours, senior grades - 18 hours a week, from 28 to 32 hours is spent on work that is not directly related to the lessons. Language and mathematics teachers have an average of 10.5 hours a day, primary school teachers 10-11 hours, history and geography teachers 8-9.6 hours, biology teachers 10.1 hours, foreign language teachers 8-9 hours. Teachers (depending on the subject and experience) are engaged in preparation for the lessons from 12 to 15 hours a week. Significant extracurricular time is taken up by educational work of an extracurricular nature, meetings with parents, checking notebooks, social work. The distribution of this time during the week is very uneven. Domestic work of female teachers takes on average 20-24 hours per week.

The data obtained confirm the existing opinion that labor physiologists should pay more attention to the study of mental labor professions. These include designers, scientists, students, teachers and representatives of other mental labor professions. These types of mental labor are characterized by the accumulation of fatigue, which can only be detected with prolonged research.

The data obtained indicate the need to optimize the work of teachers.

In order to improve their working capacity and preserve their health, it is advisable to carry out social, biomedical and physiological and hygienic measures [6]. Professional selection is of great importance. The effectiveness of health-improving measures depends on the correct assessment of the level of the functional state of the body.

References

1. On the principles of quantitative assessment of the severity and intensity of labor according to physiological research data / A.O. Navakatikyan, Yu.I. Kundnev, O. P. Okhremenko et al. // Occupational hygiene and prof. diseases. - 1971. - No. 7. - P. 3-9.