Using Anthropometric Criteria to Evaluate the Design of School Furniture for Benghazi Primary Schools

Abstract

The objective of this study is to evaluate the existing designs of school furniture used in the basic education stage in public schools in the city of Benghazi. Anthropometric data were gathered for a total of 360 students (183 females and 177 males) for the first three grades in the basic education stage (children of age 6 to 10 years old) from eight schools. Several body dimensions were measured for each student (popliteal height, popliteal-buttock length, shoulder height sitting, knee height, elbow height sitting, shoulder to elbow length, and hip breadth sitting). Dimensions of the existing design of the classroom desk were also obtained. The evaluation procedure involves the utilization of several equations relating body dimensions to furniture dimensions. Each equation computes an acceptable range for each desk dimension based on the associated body dimension. Each desk dimension is compared to the range computed for the related body dimension for each student and percentages of matches/mismatches are determined accordingly. Results of the evaluation revealed substantial percentages of mismatches between the desk dimensions and students anthropometry; all the evaluated desk dimensions are larger than the related students’ dimensions.