Promotion of hygiene habits at school – An adaptation of a project from Classroom Learning to Distance Learning

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges it brought to the portuguese education system, there
 was a need of adapting a research project to be carried out in a school environment. Prior to the
 conception of the project, a problem was identified in a class of 24 students in 1st grade: a lack of hygiene
 habits of the students' hands. Therefore, an opportunity to create a project was identified, being its main
 goal to improve students' hygiene habits, with a focus on hand washing. The project became even more
 relevant due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the urgent need of proper hand washing habits.
 Simultaneously, the research project also aimed at creating alerts and warnings at school, related to
 proper hand hygiene practices. For the data gathering, the main instruments used were an initial and
 final questionnaire to the students, an interview with the teacher in charge of the class, as well as
 observation records, based on the students' dialogues and productions. Therefore, this is a research
 project of a mixed nature (qualitative and quantitative).