Abstract
This study investigated the educational status, students' recognition, educational needs and degree of difficulty on the food and nutrition section of Technology Home economics subject in middle schools. It was carried out through questionnaires. The subjects were 503(boys; 246, girls; 257) middle school students in 3rd grade in the Daejeon area. The results were as follows. The students' preference for food and nutrition section was 58.5% of boys and 72.0% of girls. On the educational status of this section, The highest cooking frequency was once a year(52.3%), but 12.9% of students had never done cooking practice. Generally, practice education was not enough in subjected schools. The education of food and nutrition section was mainly conducted by lecture. For the behavioral change of students after learning this section, 'I can cook some simple foods' was the most(36.8%) than the other. The contents of high educational needs in this section were 'cooking foods' and ‘basic cooking methods'. A average degree of difficulty in this section was 2.89 points of the likert scale(1~5 point), particularly, 'change of food components by cooking' was the highest at 3.17 points of likert scale(1~5 point) in this degree. In relation to demographic background, the difficult degrees of this section were significantly higher than the other, when their parent's education was under middle school and their fathers' had no occupation. It suggests an increase in cooking frequency, complementing contents needed in life and using various audio-visual education aids are necessary for the education of food and nutrition section.