Medidas de prevenção da transmissão da Covid-19 no 1º ciclo do EB: descrição e avaliação de impacto

• Autor(a) principal: Maria Gabriela Taborda Marques
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10216/165142
• topic: Ciências sociais; Social sciences

Abstract: Introduction: Communication is the main route to access learning. During the current Sars-Cov-2 pandemic the mitigation measures applied to the general population were also applied to the schools. This introduced a new communication barrier to the school setting. Literature identifies impacts of these measures in human communication and social interaction in general. Low intensity and distorted speech, associated with the loss of access to our interlocutor mouth visual cues, have proven to have impact on social interaction, non-verbal communication, intelligibility, comprehensibility and, therefore, the learning process. Objectives: The main goal of the present investigation is to evaluate primary school's students and teachers self-perceived impact of these mitigation measures on the classroom communication processes. Methodology: A multi-method approach was adopted by applying questionnaires to the 4th grade students and to all the primary school teachers. Additionally, a Focus group was conducted, with the teachers, to clarify and further develop some of the topics found in the questionnaires. Results: At primary schools we observed that students mainly opted for social distancing (90,1% - 63%) and surgical masks (61,7% - 51,85%). Although wearing a medical mask can help limit the spread of the disease it was not obligatory for this age group, the investigation concluded that this choice was taken mostly by girls. On the other hand, teachers decided to maintain the windows (100%) and the doors opened (90,48%), while also wearing surgical masks (76,2% - 80,95%). Intelligibility loss was observed in teachers, when wearing KN95 or cloth masks and when the classroom door was kept opened. The introduction of these mitigation measures at school caused a greater perception of vocal effort (80,9%) and vocal abuse (57,2%) within the primary school teachers' community, but it was not possible to associate them with a higher score on VHI-10. Professors (57,1%) stated that their student's learning process was impaired by the mitigation measures, so much that all disciplines were affected at their practical components. Students disagreed that their learning process suffered any impact from the mitigation measures (45,7%). However, for those who decided to wear surgical or KN95 masks, learning was indeed made more difficult. Concerning student's socio emotional development, we verified that feelings of shame and agitation diminished, while participation and autonomy levels increased. The decrease of shame and increase of autonomy proved to be related with the students practice of social distancing. On the contrary, when teachers remained close, students felt less nervous and irritated. Keeping classroom doors open also decreased student's levels of agitation and irritation. Students perceive that their peer relationships suffered with the introduction of the mitigation measures; this fact associates negatively with their academic performance. Conclusion: The mitigation measures implemented to prevent the spread of Covid-19 infection impaired primary school dynamics at the communication level, they impaired teachers' voice and students' learning process. Nevertheless, previous studies said, and ours reinforces, the main impact of these measures lies on student's emotional wellbeing. The current investigation states that children who play more and have a greater number of positive social interactions, develop greater cognitive and sensorial skills that will later help them become better students and face the years ahead well prepared.