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Hygienic Issues in the Academic Work of Students in the Mathematics Faculty of a Pedagogical Institute

R. S. Gartshtein

Ivanovo Pedagogical Institute

The aim of our research was to develop hygienic recommendations for organizing the academic work and daily life of students in the mathematics faculty of a pedagogical institute. A study of the daily routines of future mathematicians revealed a number of significant hygienic shortcomings in their principal components. Only 12% of students organize their day properly, setting aside adequate time not only for study but also for sensible recreation; they do morning exercises, spend a considerable amount of time outdoors, participate in sports, listen to music, read fiction and popular science literature, and get sufficient sleep. Most students have no fixed daily routine. Only those who participate in an organized sport—28–30% of students—begin their day with morning exercises. The overwhelming majority of future mathematicians seriously neglect regular eating habits. Students living in dormitories generally do not eat breakfast before leaving for classes. Some attribute this to a lack of appetite in the morning, others to a desire to sleep an extra 10 minutes, and still others to an unwillingness to go to the cafeteria. This noticeably reduces their capacity for work during the first hours of class. By way of example, we present data from studies of two female students (Table 1).

After these data were shown to the group of subjects, all the students we examined began eating breakfast before classes. This fact underscores the importance of educating students about the harm caused by disrupting their daily routines.

The time allotted to homework is distributed very unevenly. Days when students must prepare for seminars in pedagogy or historical materialism are particularly demanding, especially if both are scheduled for the same day, since preparation for a seminar takes 4–6 hours. On these days, no more than 1–2 hours can be devoted to mathematical subjects. On other days, students spend 5–6 hours studying mathematics. It is therefore essential to give careful thought to the class schedule.

Many students also make poor use of their free time. They spend very little time outdoors. We therefore propose including a “health hour” in the academic schedule, during which students would be required to spend time outdoors, especially in the senior years, when physical education classes are no longer offered.

The final week of the credit-assessment period is particularly demanding: after six hours of classes, students have a credit assessment scheduled, sometimes even two in a single day, bringing their total academic workload to 11–12 hours. Such overwork before the examination period is entirely unacceptable. We propose—and the faculty dean has accepted this proposal for the new academic year—that credit assessments be distributed as evenly as possible throughout the semester rather than concentrated entirely at its end. Students should be released from classes during the final week of the credit-assessment period.

Table 1

Students’ work capacity during the first hours of classes, before and after eating

Poorly organized use of time often leads to a shortage of sleep. Many students frequently sleep only 6½–7 hours, and during credit-assessment and examination periods some sleep no more than 5–6 hours.

A hygienic assessment of the university’s teaching facilities showed that a number of classrooms lack favorable microclimatic and lighting conditions. Classrooms are not sufficiently ventilated between lectures and practical classes. Greater attention should also be paid to the aesthetics of teaching spaces. It seems to us that the more comfortable a student’s surroundings, the more effective the educational process and the less fatigued students become.

The mathematics faculty, where we conducted our study, ranks second in illness rates among the institute’s seven faculties, after the faculty of foreign languages. Given that the foreign languages faculty operated at an unfavorable temperature because of problems with the heating system, it follows that, under working conditions comparable to those of the other faculties, mathematics students have the highest illness rate. Two mathematics students took academic leave with a diagnosis of neurosis, five have hypertension and are under a physician’s care, and four consulted the campus health service physician for headaches during the 1967/68 academic year.

We are inclined to attribute the high illness rate among mathematics students in part to their heavy burden of difficult material and their inability to organize intellectual work properly. This weakens the young person’s body and reduces its resistance to adverse environmental factors.

Students’ work capacity depends to some extent on the class schedule. On days when the schedule included physical education and lectures alternated appropriately with practical classes, the indicators were higher. On days when two mathematics lectures were given in succession, however, work-capacity indicators deteriorated sharply: the latency of the visual-motor reaction increased, the number of erroneous reactions rose, the numbers of symbols reviewed and problems solved fell, and the number of errors increased.

As time-motion measurements showed, the sharp decline in work capacity after two mathematics lectures is explained by the exceptionally high proportion of students’ time spent working, which reaches 98%. This is evidently related to the difficulty of the material being explained and the students’ desire to write down every word of the lecturer.

In lectures on historical materialism, pedagogy, atheism, and even physics, the proportion of time spent working was considerably lower (62–80%), and no sharp deterioration in work-capacity indicators was observed. The study of mathematics students’ work capacity during credit-assessment and examination periods revealed interesting circumstances. On the day of an examination, their emotional preparedness, concentration, and mobilization of all the body’s resources are so great that their work-capacity indicators rise sharply: the numbers of problems solved and letters reviewed increase. Most subjects’ pulse rates quicken and their blood pressure rises.

As for the latency of the visual-motor reaction on the day of an examination, 62% of those observed showed an increase in latency, while 28% showed a shorten—

…of it, and in only 10% did the reaction remain unchanged. During the assessment period, by contrast, all indicators deteriorated sharply, which in our opinion was associated with fatigue from the preceding six-hour class days.

With the introduction of the new study schedule we proposed—a long, 25-minute break (instead of 10 minutes) in the middle of the academic day, a hot breakfast, and workplace exercise—working capacity improved (Table 2).

These findings permit the following recommendations. 1. Educate students about the harmful effects of disrupting their daily routine and provide conditions that allow them to maintain a proper eating schedule. 2. In the class timetable,

Table 2

Students’ working capacity at the end of classes under different schedules (mean values)

strictly observe the principle of alternating lectures and practical sessions, and “difficult” and “easy” subjects; do not schedule two lectures in mathematical subjects consecutively. 3. For senior students who do not have physical education classes, as well as for junior students, include a “health hour” in the timetable, requiring students to spend it outdoors; in winter, organize “health days” on weekends, with skiing excursions outside the city and ice skating. 4. During assessments, excuse students completely from classes.

Received April 1, 1968.