Can the use of well-adjusted school furniture improve students’ performance?

Abstract

The school furniture (table and chair) tries to respond to the anthropometric requests of the students so that they can feel comfortable during the periods of learning. This conjugation is not easy considering the variety of anthropometric measures of the students that are in phase of structural growth in particular in the phase of pre-adolescence and adolescence. A study previously carried out by the authors, with students between the ages of 9 and 16 years old, showed a mismatch for 65% and 73% of the population (chair and chair/table, respectively). Taking into account this high value of mismatch, it was questioned if the students’ performance would be affected. Trying to answer this question, the d2 attention test was applied to 48% of the population, in two moments: in the first one the students were seated randomly, i.e., without considering the fit between the student’s dimensions and those of the existing furniture. At the second moment there was a control group (12%), sitting on furniture adjusted according to NE 1729-1:2015. The results obtained seem to indicate that performance is not affected by the ergonomic mismatch of school furniture.