Hygienic and psychological assessment of the intensity of the remote educational process in grade schoolers

Introduction. The management of the educational process for modern students is associated with the active and prolonged use of digital technologies and devices. If the studies of the past years have given a detailed and comprehensive assessment of hygienic risk factors in the traditional management of the educational process, now there is a need to clarify the hygienic safety of the management of the educational process in remote form and when using digital devices in teaching against the background of a high commitment of children and adolescents to use gadgets at leisure. 

Materials and methods. A comparative analysis of the intensity of the educational process in primary school students according to the federal recommendations of the Federal State Educational Institution “All-Russian Development Society for School and University Medicine and Health”-16-2015 (version 1.1) “Hygienic assessment of the intensity of students’ learning activities” in traditional and distance education forms according to the timing of seventy five lessons in mathematics and Russian language. 

Results. In the distance learning form, compared with the traditional one, the intensity of educational work was found to increase from 2.9±0.05 points (class 3.1) to 3.4±0.02 points (class 3.1), p≤0.05 due to intense 2 degrees of intellectual loads (3.6±0.01 points), sensory loads (3.6±0.03 points), monotony (3.7±0.03 points) and intensity of the 1st degree of the mode of educational activity (3.1±0.03 points). The increase in sensory loads was associated with the use of information and communication tools during training, such as a computer, laptop, tablet, smartphone. Up to 15.3% of students during the traditional period and 35.5% of students during the distance education period used smartphones prohibited for teaching. The majority of students in the distance study form used a computer in 75.6% of cases, every third student (35.4%) used a laptop, with the traditional form of education, the proportion of students who used computers and laptops in teaching was 12.3–15.6%.

Limitations. The study on the assessment of the intensity of the educational process in various forms of education was limited by the fact that the sample was limited to primary school students, which does not allow extrapolating them to the total population of middle and senior level students. The timing of the intensity of educational activity in the lessons of mathematics and Russian language, which relate to difficult subjects, could determine a higher intensity of the educational process than if the assessment took into account all subjects. 

Conclusion. The obtained data especially emphasize the relevance of the adopted hygienic standards governing the total time of using information and communication tools both during the school day in the classroom and taking into account the entire time budget per day, and the need to control their use by students.

Compliance with ethical standards. The study was carried out in compliance with the principles of the Helsinki Declaration of the World Medical Association in the current edition (WMA Declaration of Helsinki – Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects), including before the study, voluntary informed consent was obtained from the legal representatives of the students and approved by the local Ethics Committee at the FSBEI in the OrGMU of the Ministry of Health of Russia (Protocol No... from ... 2019).

Contribution:
Bulycheva E.V. — concept and design of research, collection and processing of material;
Antokhin E.Yu. — writing text, editing.
All authors are responsible for the integrity of all parts of the manuscript and approval of the manuscript final version

Conflict of interest. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgement. The study had no sponsorship.

Received: December 16, 2022 / Accepted: March 24, 2023 / Published: May 29, 2023