Hygienic evaluation of innovative educational technologies in primary school

introduction. The paper presents hygienic approaches to the development of methods for the hygienic assessment of pedagogical technologies in terms of the safety for the health of pupils and effectiveness in terms of improving the quality of education. The aim of the study was a hygienic assessment of innovative technologies of enrichment in primary school.

Material and methods. The pupils of primary classes of the second year of the education were examined in two educational organizations of the city of Irkutsk. One group of children was trained according to enrichment training technology (60 children), the second – to a typical general education program (65 children). A total of 125 children were examined during the second year of study. The hygienic factors of the organization of the educational process were studied using the methodology for assessing the intensity of the educational work, the conditions for organizing the educational process, as well as texts of textbooks for readability (the Flash index) and the understanding of texts (Fog index). The obtained data are compared with the main criteria of the state of neuropsychic development of children: intellectual development (according to the method of Raven’s test with the definition of abilities to isolate relationships, analogies, rearrangement, decomposition and progressive change in the matrix of figures), mental performance (according to the method by V.Ya. Anfimov), short-term memory (Ray test).

Results. With the innovative technology of teaching, the intensity of the training work was established to be approaching the third degree of intensity of the training work by the criterion of intellectual loads: 2.9 ± 0.16 points with enrichment training technology and 2.2 ± 0.09 points in the conditions of training under the standard program p < 0.05). Indices of the sensory and emotional intensity of the educational work with the technology of enriched learning were statistically higher also (p < 0.05). The increase in the intensity of the educational work was accompanied by a decrease in intellectual development, short-term memory and mental performance (p < 0.05). Conclusions were made about the need for a comprehensive hygienic assessment of the safety for health and the effectiveness of innovative pedagogical technologies based on the developed methodology.

Conclusion. It is proposed to allow using pedagogical technology in educational organizations only after hygienic examination of its approbation in the educational process.