UDC 371.67:686.863.8

Comparative Hygienic Assessment of Different Pens for First-Grade Pupils

N. N. Kuindzhi

Institute of Hygiene of Children and Adolescents, Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, Moscow

The introduction of fountain pens for writing in the first grade of primary school was prompted by educators’ desire to increase pupils’ writing speed. Educators would be entirely satisfied with a fountain pen that required the least pressure during writing. The degree of pressure is inseparably linked to the amount of effort expended. Considerable exertion may cause a pupil to become fatigued prematurely. We therefore set out to assess pens according to the pressure they require. Other pen parameters (length, diameter, and weight) have been assessed by other authors and, as it turned out, have no substantial effect on pupils’ ability to work (M. V. Antropova and L. I. Aleksandrova; Whiles).

The following four pens were selected for the study (see figure): a simple school dip pen with a No. 11 nib, used by first-grade pupils before fountain pens were introduced; an adult piston-fill fountain pen manufactured by the Yaroslavl Metal Products Plant; a school fountain pen from the same Yaroslavl plant; and a school fountain pen from the Moscow “Avtoruchka” Plant. Five specimens of each pen were studied. To record the effort expended in writing, an apparatus was assembled consisting of a strain-gauge platform built into the desk top, a strain-gauge amplifier, and an H-102 oscilloscope. This apparatus made it possible to conduct the study under natural conditions without disrupting the development of the children’s writing skills.

Observations were made on 26 pupils. They were given a task comparable to one they would receive in an ordinary writing lesson. The amount of work, rather than the time spent writing, was standardized. The task was the same for all pupils. Each pupil performed it using all four pens in turn.

The task consisted of writing individual letters of the alphabet that most clearly revealed differences in pen pressure and had already been mastered by first-grade pupils. Letters composed of repeated elements, such as Ш and Ж, or simply straight strokes, best met this requirement.

At the beginning of each study, we calibrated the strain-gauge platform using weights ranging from 100 to 500 g, which were released onto the platform down an inclined plane to simulate the movement involved in writing. The pressure exerted on the platform by each weight was recorded on an oscillograph. The amplitude of the resulting oscillogram served as the scale for a specific weight value, from which the weight-equivalent value of writing pressure was calculated. A total of 104 oscillograms were obtained. For each, we calculated the amplitude of the oscillations, which we took as an

Examples of the experimental pens and oscillograms of the pressure exerted when using them.

1 — simple pupil’s pen with a No. 11 nib; 2 — Yaroslavl piston-filling fountain pen; 3 — Yaroslavl school fountain pen; 4 — Moscow school fountain pen.

indicator of the force exerted during writing. The forces that first-grade pupils had to exert when writing with these pens are shown in the table.

Force exerted when writing with different pens

The differences in the force measurements were statistically significant.

The pupils exerted the least force when writing with the pupil’s pen with a No. 11 nib and the greatest force when writing with the Moscow factory’s school fountain pen. If the lowest force value is considered optimal, it would be advisable to recom-

...recommend a simple student’s dip pen fitted with a No. 11 nib. In practice, however, dip pens are now hardly used. They have been replaced by fountain pens, whose quality, all other things being equal, should in our view be judged by the pressure required on the nib during writing. The closer this pressure is to that required when using a simple student’s dip pen, the less resistance the pupil must overcome when writing and the later fatigue will set in. Judging by the results of our studies, the least pressure was required when writing with the adult piston-filling fountain pen manufactured by the Yaroslavl factory. This pen should evidently be recommended for teaching writing in the first grade.

We investigated the effort required to use the Moscow factory’s school fountain pen with both a hooded and an exposed nib. In both cases, writing required relatively great effort: the amplitude of the oscillations was 1.32 cm for the pen with a hooded nib and 1.39 cm for the pen with an exposed nib. Evidently, the design of the nib cannot be considered the cause of the fountain pen’s high resistance. This assumption is supported by the relatively low amplitude of the force oscillogram (1.2 cm) when writing with the adult piston-filling fountain pen manufactured by the Yaroslavl factory, which also has a hooded nib. In our view, the main reason for the fountain pen’s high resistance lies in the quality of the nib. Therefore, when designing school fountain pens, it is necessary to develop a special GOST standard for the materials used in their manufacture, so that schoolchildren can soon be provided with fountain pens requiring minimal pressure during writing.

References

Antropova, M. V., and Aleksandrova, L. I. Gigiena i sanitariya, 1960, no. 3, p. 44.

Received April 3, 1965.