Title
Assessing The Stiffness Perception Of Acupressure Massage Beginning Learners: A Pilot Study
Abstract
Visually impaired licensed therapists must have the ability to perceive stiffness through their fingertips in the school for the blind. The teachers strive to provide careful introductory education based on a quantitative assessment of new students' basic stiffness perception. However, assessment materials to help teachers understand new students' stiffness perception are lacking. This study aimed to develop suitable fundamental assessment materials that visually impaired licensed teachers could use to quantitatively assess the difference in the stiffness perception ability of beginning learners in the early stages of learning. They were asked to discriminate the presented materials one at a time, which consisted of thermoplastic elastomers with different degrees of stiffness. We used these materials to compare the beginning learners' ability to perceive stiffness with that of teachers and found that teachers answered correctly at an overall significantly higher rate. Specifically, the teachers' correct response rate (78.8%) for the stiffness perception of all presented stimuli was approximately 15% higher than the beginning learners' correct response rate (64.2%). These results revealed areas of stiffness that are difficult for beginning learners to identify.
Year
DOI
Venue
2021
10.3390/s21072472
SENSORS
Keywords
DocType
Volume
assessment material, stiffness perception, acupressure massage, visual impairment, beginning learner
Journal
21
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
7
1424-8220
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Kouki Doi100.34
Saito Sakaguchi200.34
Takahiro Nishimura300.34
Hiroshi Fujimoto400.34
Shuichi Ino500.34