Work-Related Psychosocial Factors Effects on NASA-TLX Dimension Scores and Body Postures
Disciplines
Ergonomics | Industrial Engineering
Abstract (300 words maximum)
How we perceive our work relates to how our body reacts to help facilitate task performance. Some studies have demonstrated that work psychosocial factors can significantly impact employee health on psychological and physical levels. However, the cross-sectional nature of the study's design did not allow for causal interpretations. In this study, participants performed two tasks (sitting and standing), under four different levels of mental workload (conditions: baseline, interruptions, time, and alarms). NASA- Task Load Index was used to assess the perception of mental workload for each condition across six dimensions: mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand, effort, performance, and frustration level. Rapid Entire Body Assessment scores for the standing task and Rapid Upper Limb Assessment scores for the sitting task were used to determine body postures. We juxtaposed NASA-TLX scores with corresponding REBA/RULA scores to evaluate the effect of the perceived mental workload on respective body postures. One-way ANOVA was performed to evaluate the effect of the experimental conditions on each response variable. The results of the experiment showed that the higher the perception of mental workload, the more of an effect it has on body postures. ANOVA analyses showed the most statistically significant difference in the dimensions’ scores was associated with the standing task. Temporal Demand and Performance scores were the most affected by the psychosocial factors in both sitting and standing tasks across the different conditions. Gender has an effect on Physical Demand and Performance (higher on females) dimensions’ scores; however, it has no effect on REBA nor on RULA scores. The fact that females rated their performance higher than men causes further inquiries since in general women tend to think they underperformed their male counterparts.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
SPCEET - Industrial and Systems Engineering
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Valentina Niño
Work-Related Psychosocial Factors Effects on NASA-TLX Dimension Scores and Body Postures
How we perceive our work relates to how our body reacts to help facilitate task performance. Some studies have demonstrated that work psychosocial factors can significantly impact employee health on psychological and physical levels. However, the cross-sectional nature of the study's design did not allow for causal interpretations. In this study, participants performed two tasks (sitting and standing), under four different levels of mental workload (conditions: baseline, interruptions, time, and alarms). NASA- Task Load Index was used to assess the perception of mental workload for each condition across six dimensions: mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand, effort, performance, and frustration level. Rapid Entire Body Assessment scores for the standing task and Rapid Upper Limb Assessment scores for the sitting task were used to determine body postures. We juxtaposed NASA-TLX scores with corresponding REBA/RULA scores to evaluate the effect of the perceived mental workload on respective body postures. One-way ANOVA was performed to evaluate the effect of the experimental conditions on each response variable. The results of the experiment showed that the higher the perception of mental workload, the more of an effect it has on body postures. ANOVA analyses showed the most statistically significant difference in the dimensions’ scores was associated with the standing task. Temporal Demand and Performance scores were the most affected by the psychosocial factors in both sitting and standing tasks across the different conditions. Gender has an effect on Physical Demand and Performance (higher on females) dimensions’ scores; however, it has no effect on REBA nor on RULA scores. The fact that females rated their performance higher than men causes further inquiries since in general women tend to think they underperformed their male counterparts.