Evaluation of anthropometric measures of vocational high school students according to the current seating arrangements and work equipments and recommendations: An examplae of Atatürk Industrial High School of Mersin province at the department of installation technology and air conditioning

The determination of the hazards in working environments and the risk levels of these hazards and taking effective measures when necessary is considered as the basic approach of occupational health and safety studies. It is known that hazards, that cannot be determined exactly, risks whose level cannot be determined correctly, cause work accidents and occupational diseases in the short, medium and long term. In this sense, the basic parameters of ergonomics science, which aims to design the working conditions according to the employee by examining the employee, the working environment and the machines, are very important. By the ideal ergonomic designs, not only is there an improvement in health and safety issues, but also in productivity. Especially in educational institutions that provide vocational education, it is extremely important to evaluate the environment and machines in which individuals in the development age (adolescent age) interact by taking people into the center. Making ergonomic arrangements taking into account the anthropometric measurements in this period means preventing future health problems. At this point, the designing and usage of school furniture and work equipment used by students without taking into account the anthropometric dimensions of the students is a very important problem. In this context, it is obvious that it will be beneficial for students to design all kinds of school furniture according to the data obtained as a result of the anthropometric measurements taken from students periodically. Within the scope of this study, it was analyzed whether the classroom furniture and work equipments in workshop are suitable or not according to the anthropometric data of the students of Atatürk Industrial High School of Mersin Province at The Department of Installation Technologyand Air Conditioning. For this purpose, concrete measurement results were obtained by using a suitable anthropometric measurement set. In the first stage, frequently used tools and equipment were determined in the Installation Technologies department and the harmony between them and the users was tried to be revealed by taking the measurements of these tools. In this context, it is aimed to evaluate the tools and equipment in the workshop and classrooms with ergonomic evaluation criteria. The things that must be done as a result of this measurements are stated in the results section.