Recognizing STEM talents and promoting them in a gender-inclusive way

In order to recognize and promote STEM talents in girls and to support STEM-related career orientation in a gender-inclusive way, individual interventions for digital media were developed and evaluated in the MINTcoach joint project.

Girls are less likely than boys to choose STEM subjects such as mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology. They develop a lower STEM self-concept early on, although their grades reflect equivalent abilities. Pupils in the 6th/7th grades took part in fun STEM tasks, workshops and exciting excursions over a period of 1.5 years, continuously evaluated and tailored to the interests of girls in particular.

MINTcoach is part of the nationwide "Komm, mach MINT" network within the National Pact for Women in STEM Professions. The gender-didactic psychological concept with tasks and interventions, questionnaires, statistical analysis and evaluation was created at A.U.G.E., while the coordination, technology and school workshops were the responsibility of the Birkenfeld Environmental Campus of Trier University of Applied Sciences;

Project duration (HN sub-project): July 2017 - June 2020
Project funding: Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), funding line "Strategies for the implementation of equal opportunities for women in education and research", FKZ 01FP1610

STEM network website: Komm mach MINT
MINTcoach project website: www.mintcoach.net
Project profile: MINTcoach
Summary of objectives and content: MINTcoach compact

Weltbunt - The significance of historical dye collections for the development of the textile and chemical industries and everyday culture

The BMBF-funded Weltbunt project researched the development and effects of synthetic textile dyes since their discovery at the end of the 19th century. The project partners were the CICS, Cologne Institute of Conservation Sciences at the TH Köln(project page), the TU Dresden with its own collection as well as the Museum Schloss Rheydt and Textilmuseum Krefeld-Linn.

The great demand in the fashion world for ever new colors triggered a rapid development in textile dyeing, the production of chemical raw materials and machine technology and thus became the basis of today's widely publicized chemical industry and large-scale production.

The starting point for the project idea is the historical dye collection of the Hochschule Niederrhein and its royal predecessor institutions, which comprises around 10,600 specimens. The small glass bottles with the valuable dye powders are exhibited in the Textile Technology Center in the Montfors Quarter Mönchengladbach-Rheydt and in the Textile Museum Krefeld-Linn.

Their origin, composition and technical properties in the dyeing process and in use are examined. The particular challenge is to record the influences of almost 150 years of storage by comparing them with historical sample books and searching for historical traces. The results will be summarized in a database and will then be generally accessible.

Project funding: BMBF, Federal Ministry of Education and Research, funding reference 01UQ1704A

Project duration: 01.02.2017 to 31.01.2020

Contact: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schram, Instrumental Analytics at the Department of Chemistry
schram@hs-niederrhein.de

Maintaining and promoting the mental health of particularly stressed occupational and functional groups
The BeFunt project focuses on mental health in small and micro enterprises (MSEs). Mental illness is also on the rise in the skilled trades sector, both among owners and employees.
By analyzing the work processes of the participating model companies, prevention needs were identified and company-specific measures were designed that could be tested and adapted directly in practical application.
In order to enable and expand sustainable use in MSEs, the support tools developed were incorporated into the project partners' advisory services.
Sponsored by the European Social Fund ESF and the NRW Ministry of Labor, Integration and Social Affairs (MAIS)
Contact: Ms. Birgit Weber, A.U.G.E. Institute

Project materials / practical aids

• Guide to mental health in MSEs
• flyer
• Brief information on project data
• Seminar concept for healthy leadership
• Stress recipes poster
• BEM - Company integration management:
  • Good practice examples10 steps (9 p.)Tips KKU (20 p.)
• Decision-making aid - work ability concept
• Early detection of mental stress

The IREQ project was finally evaluated. The aim of the project was to analyze the existing work activities and skills of employees in SMEs in order to derive qualification profiles and development potential. Internal recruitment is intended to prevent the shortage of skilled workers in SMEs. The project was rated very positively by the SMEs involved.

.....an the interface between occupational safety and hygiene

The work processes of cleaning staff in clinics were the focus of the HYGRE project, sponsored by the BGW (Berufsgenossenschaft für Gesundheitsdienst und Wohlfahrtspflege):
The hygienically flawless and thorough cleaning process reduces the risk of infection transmission in hospitals. Cleaning staff in hospitals are generally a little-noticed group, although their work is of great importance. Their work makes a significant contribution to ensuring health in hospitals.
Many of the cleaning staff have a migrant background, which can lead to difficulties in understanding and knowledge deficits that can result in incorrect procedures and thus endanger themselves and others.
An extensive multilingual survey was conducted among cleaning staff in NRW clinics, as well as observations of activities under practical conditions. Behavioral aspects, work requirements, (protective) equipment and available knowledge on safety and hygiene were analyzed as factors influencing potential hazards:
(1) Are the cleaning staff aware of the potential risks in their work?
(2) Are the cleaning staff sensitized through training and able to act, e.g. in the event of a cannula injury?
(3) How are hygiene standards and occupational health and safety implemented, especially when there is a lack of time or staff?
A summary of the results can be downloaded here:

Resource efficiency in building operation through user integration and automation
Universities have a role model function with regard to saving resources and the task of acting as social multipliers and developing transferable models. The building sector accounts for 40% of the EU's total energy demand, with public buildings making up around a third of this. Although the savings potential of building measures is considerable, it is usually cost-intensive and cannot be realized in the short term, and is often linked to correspondingly optimized usage behavior.
The focus of this project is therefore on low-investment measures based on an assessment of the building technology and environmental psychological surveys and interventions that take into account the specific usage patterns of numerous different user groups and their general conditions.

• Project overview
• Brief report
• Energy guide
• Energy-saving poster
• Final report

....Modern personnel management in transport companies
The MIGEMA project of the VDV Academy Cologne for the organizational development of transport companies was accompanied internally by our institute and finally evaluated. MIGEMA dealt with the topics of leadership at a distance, leadership in large management spans and leadership in part-time under the aspects of employee involvement, support and resource orientation in the transport service. The project was rated very positively by the participating companies. Shifting values and changing expectations make it necessary to adapt leadership behavior again and again.

Accompanying evaluation on behalf of RWTH (6 2021 - 11 2023)

The KI-LIAS project researches and develops AI assistance applications in manufacturing companies that promote learning - from the acceptance-based application decision to the development, introduction to and use of the AI tools.

Prof. Dr. Monika Eigenstetter from the A.U.G.E. Institute at The Hochschule Niederrhein is responsible for the external formative evaluation, in accordance with the quality guidelines of the BMAS funding program "New Quality of Work". The feedback impulses in the course of the project focus on the acceptance of employees in human-machine interaction.

The MINTcoach app: getting girls interested in MINT

At the 51st DGPs Congress (German Psychological Society) in Frankfurt am Main, Dr. habil. Britta Oerke, research associate at A.U.G.E., presented a poster on the MINTcoach project. The focus was on the motivation and self-assessment of girls on STEM topics and how the MINTcoach app can sponsor this from a psychological perspective.

The team led by educational researcher Dr. Britta Oerke and Prof. Dr. Monika Eigenstetter designed playful STEM tasks with an exciting storyline to arouse curiosity, encourage independent solutions and spur on further challenges.

The theoretical foundation course of the gender didactic interventions was summarized in an interim report, which was published on the portal of the nationwide network "Komm mach MINT".

• Poster download MINTcoach app
• Getting girls interested in STEM - interim report
• Project website www.mintcoach.net
• Komm mach MINT - Network women in STEM professions - MINTcoach project

Conference contribution to the 32nd EnviroInfo on the MINTcoach project

At the 32nd EnviroInfo at the Leibniz Supercomputing Center Garching near Munich, the MINTcoach team presented technical and content-related aspects of the development of the MINTcoach app, which implements gender didactic interventions for pupils in the 7th grade.

The article "Sustainability through Digital Behavioral Interventions" has now been published in the conference proceedings "Techniques and Trends. Adjunct Proceedings of the 32nd EnviroInfo conference" (ed. Bungartz, Kranzlmüller, Weinberg, Weismüller, Wohlgemuth; Environmental Informatics, Munich, 2018, pages 11-16).The authors are Simone Blank, Prof. Dr. Monika Eigenstetter, Andreas Filler, Achim Guldner, Yasmin Juncker, Prof. Dr. Stefan Naumann, Dr. Britta Oerke and Prof. Dr. Gisela Sparmann

Occupational health and safety for cleaning staff in hospitals is a high priority for cleaning companies and departments, as coordinated cleaning and cleaning aids and protective equipment are the foundation course for good working conditions on site and patient safety. The HYGRE project, sponsored by the German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the health and welfare services, analyzed further hygiene-relevant aspects of cleaning and disinfection activities as part of a systematic survey comparing service providers and hospitals as internal employers.

The research team led by Prof. Dr. Monika Eigenstetter with Leon Galushko, Ekaterina Jäger, Stefanie Olesch and Adam Blaszk found a need for systematic training and targeted knowledge transfer about hazards and the importance of instructions and label symbols, especially in the case of language barriers and time pressure, as well as collegial and professional recognition and support from other professional groups in the hospital.

The study was published in peer-reviewed form in the Zeitschrift für medizinische Prävention ASU Arbeitsmedizin, Sozialmedizin, Umweltmedizin No. 53, pp. 256-263 and is also available online. Interesting facts about the project and a summary of the study results can be found under "Completed projects".

Prevention of mental stress in shift work
Prof. Dr. Thomas Langhoff, occupational scientist in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, is an expert in the assessment of mental stress and effective prevention within work processes and organizational structures. Prevention is also at the forefront of shift work, the subject of two publications from 2019:
Langhoff, Thomas (2019). This is how mental stress is assessed, in: Good Work 6/2019, p.20ff
Langhoff, Thomas; Satzer, Rolf; Richter, Marius (2019). Health burdens due to shift work, Z.Arb.Wiss (73), 4/2019, pp. 465-473, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41449-019-00153-2 (peer reviewed)

Flexible working hours and shift work
The greater flexibility demanded by companies often means an expansion of existing highly flexible working time and shift planning systems with additional peak loads due to overtime. The aspects of ergonomics and health promotion tend to take a back seat in times of economic boom. Prof. Dr. Thomas Langhoff, occupational scientist in the industrial engineering department at The Hochschule Niederrhein, and Rolf Satzer, psychologist, analyze the influencing factors, effects and control options of work design and refer to Section 5 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, according to which works councils can initiate an "event-related assessment of physical and mental stress" (Good Work, issue 7-8/2018).

Integration of shift work into the risk assessment
Thomas Langhoff and Rolf Satzer explain how shift work should be taken into account in a holistic risk assessment in their new article in the magazine "sicher ist sicher" (69th year, issue 4/18, pp. 175-177, Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin).

Demography-friendlyknowledge management
The need for practicable and socially acceptable options for older employees in technologically changing companies is still highly topical 10 years after the public funding phase for demography projects: the book article "Demography tools for companies" by Ulrike Weber and Prof. Dr. Thomas Langhoff shows examples of good practice on how to reconcile the requirements of people and companies, mitigate points of friction and make optimum use of resources. The book can be found on pages 587-599 of the expert anthology "Neue Entwicklungen in der Unternehmensorganisation" (VDI book published by Springer-Vieweg in Berlin, editors D. Spath, E. Westkämper, H.-J. Bullinger, H.-J. Warnecke), which was published at the end of 2017.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Langhoff is an expert in the assessment of mental stress and effective prevention in work processes and organizational structures. Prevention is also at the forefront of shift work.

The greater flexibility demanded by companies often means an expansion of existing highly flexible shift planning systems with additional peak loads due to overtime. Ergonomics and health promotion take a back seat during periods of economic boom. A scientifically based work design prevents stress and damage. Works councils can "initiate event-related assessments of physical and mental stress in accordance with Section 5 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (Good Work, issue 7-8/2018).

More on the topic of shift work and mental stress:

Langhoff, Thomas; Satzer, Rolf; Richter, Marius (2019). Health burdens due to shift work, Z.Arb.Wiss (73), 4/2019, pp. 465-473, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41449-019-00153-2 (peer reviewed)

Langhoff, Thomas; Satzer, Rolf (2018).
Integration of shift work into the risk assessment
sicher ist sicher, 69. Jg, 4/18, S. 175-177, Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin

Thomas Langhoff, Professor of Ergonomics and Human Resources at The Hochschule Niederrhein, presented a study on shift work together with Roman Zitzelsberger, District Manager of IG Metall in Baden-Württemberg, which involved more than 2,500 employees:

Due to evolution, people's active phases are adapted to the light hours of the day. As a result, the quality of sleep is much higher in the dark, allowing the body to regenerate more fully at night than during daytime sleep. If night shifts cannot be avoided for organizational reasons, blocks of max. 2-3 night shifts alternating with longer day shifts and shifts off are recommended. Early shifts should not start before 6 am. In the case of artificial lighting, the light spectrum is decisive for the health effects - where possible, lighting that corresponds to daylight should be used. In order to avoid stressing the metabolism programmed for night-time rest during the night shift, employees should be provided with healthy and light hot meals as an energy supply, as they cannot afford to prepare them themselves.

Langhoff, Thomas (2020). Burnout and mental stress, in: Good work 2/2020, p. 29ff

Langhoff, Thomas (2020). Some comments on the article "GBU Psyche - Which instruments are permissible?", in: Sicherheitsingenieur, 51. Jahrgang, Heft 11/20, p. 39

Langhoff, Thomas (2019). This is how mental stress is assessed, in: Good work 6/2019, p.20ff

The need for practicable and socially acceptable options for older employees in technologically changing companies is still highly topical 10 years after the public funding phase for demography projects: the book contribution "Demography tools for companies" by Ulrike Weber and Prof. Dr. Thomas Langhoff shows examples of good practice on how the requirements of people and companies can be reconciled, points of friction mitigated and resources optimally used. The book can be found on pages 587-599 of the expert anthology "Neue Entwicklungen in der Unternehmensorganisation" (VDI book published by Springer-Vieweg in Berlin, editors D. Spath, E. Westkämper, H.-J. Bullinger, H.-J. Warnecke), which was published at the end of 2017.