A novel distance learning ergonomics checklist and risk evaluation methodology: A case of Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Many governments decided to cancel face-to-face teaching and learning activities in schools and universities. They replaced them with online teaching and distance learning activities to prevent the spread of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Due to this sudden change, students experienced some anthropometric, environmental, and psychosocial difficulties at home during the distance learning process. This study focuses on determining the importance of anthropometric, environmental, and psychosocial factors in the distance learning process during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study presents main factors and their subfactors affecting ergonomic conditions of university students during distance learning. A novel distance learning ergonomics checklist is proposed based on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration checklists. The data are collected via a questionnaire filled by 100 university students who attend the Ergonomics course online. Then, the integrated methodology includes Voting Analytic Hierarchy Process integrated Pythagorean Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to An Ideal Solution method is adopted to prioritize the factors determined. Thirty-nine different subfactors are evaluated under five titles, and the most important factors are determined using the proposed methodology. With the results achieved, it is seen that the suggested checklist and proposed methodology can be used by public and private education organizations as a guide for improving their distance learning strategies.