PARTICIPATION IN OCCUPATION 2- Ergonomics: Week 2

In the second tutorial we talked about the idea of ergonomics and how they relate to our activity.

Ergonomics can be defined as it, "aims to design appliances, technical systems and tasks in such a way as to improve human safety, health and comfort".

Ergonomics (human factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with understanding of interactions among human and other elements of a system, and the profession that applied theory, principles, data and method to design, in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance (Dul & Weerdmeester, 2008).

Ergonomics can relate to person, occupation and environment.

Aspects to do with the person include:

• Time available
• Financial resources
• Personal space
• Sense of the individual (putting your stamp on something)
• Age and were you are on the time line
• Particular responsibilities

I can relate some of these aspects back to my activity through the aspect of particular responsibilities I have. These include being there on time, playing fair, participating to my best at the activity and supporting my other team mate and communicating with them.

Age and gender isn’t of concern in the competition I am involved in. It contains teams which are either same gender or mixed and range from ages of around 12- 50 yrs old. With the mixed ages in teams and also rules for mixed genders produces a variety of skill levels in teams and makes it a fair opportunity for everyone.

Aspects to do with activity include:

• Robustness of material- making you feel more competent
• Degree of engagement necessary for the task
• Costs
• Time of day, year

An example of one of these aspects in relation to my activity is the degree of engagement that is necessary for the task. This is because as I am in a social competition it is not expected of you to have great skills and put a great amount of effort in. I personally have a competitive personality so I try and engage myself as much as possible; however it’s clear some are there just for a social outing.

Aspects to do with environment include:

• Physical environment
• Distractions from the game
• Accessibility of the venue
• Culture
• Seasons
• Political environment

An example of this in relation to my activity is through the accessibility and physical environment of the venue. I am lucky as the venue is 2 minutes up the road from my house so very easy to access and the hall is only new so spring courts which are good to move around on and easier on your body.

VOLLEYBALL WEEK 1 & 2

I feel as I have been playing volleyball for two weeks now I haven’t analysed the aspect of ergonomics. For next Tuesday I feel like ill have a better understanding to the link to person occupation and environment and how these can be viewed in an ergonomic view.

Reference:

Dul, j. & Weerdmeester,B. (2008). Ergonomics for Beginners: A Quick reference Guide (3 ed.). USA: Taylor & Francis