Relation Between the Motor Proficiency of Fingers and Hands and Education in Sewing

Research Project

Project/Area Number	09680005
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	家政学
Research Institution	Tokyo Gakugei University
Principal Investigator	NARUMI Takeo Tokyo Gakugei Univ. Education professor, 教育学部, 教授 (90014836)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	HIKAGE Yayoi Hirosaki Univ. Education, Assistant professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (10142829)
Project Period (FY)	1997 – 1999
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1999)
Budget Amount *help	¥3,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,400,000) Fiscal Year 1999: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000) Fiscal Year 1998: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000) Fiscal Year 1997: ¥2,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,200,000)
Keywords	fingers and hands / motor proficiency of fingers and hands / education of sewing / skillfulness / evaluation / thread-tying test / influence of learing / 被服製作 / 巧緻性 / 微細運動機能 / 作業経験 / 反復練習 / 自己評価 / 糸結び / 評価方法
Research Abstract	The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the motor proficiency of fingers and hands and education in sewing. We conducted a thread-tying test to measure the actual skillfulness of the fingers and hands among the younger generations of today. A comparison between the present and the 1950s made it clear that skillfulness has decreased by 40%-60% among school and university students as measured by the mean number of knots achieved on the thread-tying test. We also confirmed that the motor proficiency of fingers and hands influenced attitudes toward study and on the formation of personality. A survey of self-evaluation of skillfulness was conducted on high school students. These students, especially girls, tended to have little confidence in the skillfulness of their fingers and hands. This result implies that the loss of skillfulness is an important factor in the loss of motivation toward studying sewing. Analyzing attitudes toward daily activities and factors related to self-evaluation of skillfulness, we found that confidence regarding skillfulness contributes positively to the abundance of experiences and toward positive attendance in daily activities. Our conclusion thus was that more programs to improve the skillfulness and promote the use of fingers and hands should be in introduced into school curricula. We concluded that sewing class have great potential for improving skillfulness in fingers and hands. Finally, by observing the results of thread-tying tests for 10 months in a university-level sewing class, we demonstrated that education in sewing contributes to improvements in skillfulness.