• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
• /
• v.38 no.5
• /
• pp.626-635
• /
• 2009

The purposes of the study were to identify a comprehensive competency list related to the jobs of nutrition teachers and to compare the competency needs for nutrition teachers and dieticians' competency levels. Job functional areas and a competency list for nutrition teachers were developed based on a review of literature and revised through expert panel reviews. A total of 53 competency statements associated with 11 job functional areas were specified. Questionnaires were distributed to 457 dieticians engaged in school food service and 148 responses were returned (response rate: 32.4%). Excluding incomplete responses, 142 questionnaires were used for data analysis. Approximately half of the respondents were enrolled in an 1-year nutrition teacher certificate program, 25% in a graduate school of nutrition education, and 19% had completed an 1-year nutrition teacher certificate program. The dieticians highly rated requirements of the competencies related to sanitation and employee safety, nutrition counseling, nutrition education, and teaching practices; in contrary, their competency levels for nutrition education, nutrition counseling, and teaching practices were low. Respondents' competency levels were significantly lower than the required competency levels of effective nutrition teachers in all functional areas. A quadratic analysis based on the requirement and self-evaluation of the competencies revealed that priorities of education programs targeting school nutrition teachers or students preparing to be nutrition teachers should be placed on improving competencies related to nutrition education, nutrition counseling, teaching practices, sanitation and employee safety, menu management, and human resource management. These results can be used to develop curriculum materials for basic and continuing professional education for nutrition teachers. It is necessary to review and update competencies regularly to reflect environmental changes in school food service programs.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.812-825
• /
• 2023

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: This study investigated the importance and performance level of sodium reduction practices in school meal service by school nutrition teachers and dietitians, and compared them according to school level and placement of the school nutrition teacher. SUBJECTS/METHODS: An online survey was conducted with 608 nutrition teachers and dietitians in schools in the Republic of Korea from September 28 to November 12, 2021 (response rate: 57%). The questionnaire comprised 11 items related to sodium reduction practices (purchasing, food preparation and serving, and education). The importance and performance level of each item was rated on a 5-point scale. The mean differences were analyzed using t-tests or one-way analyses of variance and Duncan's post-hoc tests. An importance-performance analysis was performed on sodium reduction practices. RESULTS: Participating in sodium reduction education, sodium reduction education for cooks, and sodium reduction education for students were assessed to have high importance but low performance. Overall, the higher the school level, the lower was the importance level of sodium reduction practices. The performance in kindergartens and elementary schools was higher than that in middle and high schools. The importance in the purchasing category perceived by dietitians was lower as compared to nutrition teachers. In addition, the performance in the purchasing, food preparation and serving, and education categories perceived by dietitians was lower than those of nutrition teachers. CONCLUSION: Sodium reduction education for nutrition teachers and dietitians, cooks, and students should prioritize practicing sodium reduction in school meal service. Specific guidelines for managing sodium reduction at all stages-purchasing, food preparation, and serving-should also be developed. The results could be used as basic data to reduce the sodium content in school meals.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.787-798
• /
• 1998

This study is an analysis on how current elementary teachers think about nutrition education, how they are teaching it, and problems that have occurred. The main purpose of this analysis was to deal with future problems in nutrition education by analyzing the present situation . The survey was done on 544 currently working elementary school teachers. from the 9 education departments within Seoul, 2 schools were chosen from each department by stratified random sampling. The survey used a questionnaire that was passed out personally to teachers from September 1, 1997 to the 19th. The 544 usable questionnaires were analyzed by using the teachers had nutrition education training and the average score of nutrition knowledge was 13.30 $\pm$2.73 out of 20. Nutrition education was being taught as apart of other subjects in 87.9% of the schools, and mainly by lecture. Audio visuals aids were used by 53.7% of the teachers and the most common was the VTR. Nutrition education was taught as a part of physical education and 41.5% were using teacher guides to help them. 91.9% of the teachers supported the idea of nutrition education in elementary schools. Nutrition education was supported by 80. 0% of teachers to begin when children are in kindergarten, proving that early nutrition education is supported. The analysis showed that nutrition education should be taught by parents(29.4%) , teachers(29.2%), and nutritionists(25.9%) relating that family , education, and school lunch programs should tie in with each other. 96.7% of the teachers responded that they would teach nutrition education. However, 41.0% disagreed with having a separate course for nutrition education . Proper eating habits, nutrition and its diseases, and growth with nutrition were the main categories within nutrition education and the most effect method was thought to have audio visuals, guides for teachers , and to link the subject matter with school lunch programs. The teachers main responses to problems with children were that they are too much instant food, did not eat in a variety , and had no manners in eating. Ironically, the believed that malnutrition, fainting and growth stunt were not important nutrition problems.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
• /
• v.10 no.5
• /
• pp.654-667
• /
• 2005

To survey the different view points about food service programs among parents and teachers, 2 types of questionnaires, which consisted of attitude, perception, satisfaction and demand of the food service program in child education centers, were used. The data was collected from 2450 parents and 450 teachers who attended a child education center in 16 provinces, nationwide. SPSS was used for descriptive analysis and ANOVA test and $X^2-test$. The frinding results were as follows. 1. The average serving size of meal (lunch) were 80 meals per day and 167 meals per day at large institutions. Mean cost of snacks was 14,709 won per month and mean costs of lunch were 29,319 won per month. The mean price was not significantly different according to the scale of institution. The numbers of servings of lunch, morning snack and afternoon snack were 5, 3.4 and 3.5 times per week each. $56.4\%$ of the institutions served meals to children in classrooms, but the national/public institutions, which were attending elementary school, served meals in a dining place in the elementary school. 2. Teacher controlled serving portion size of snacks $(79.6\%)$ and lunch $(88.8\%)\;and\;30.1\%$ of teacher did not allow leaving lunch food. The ratio of knowing about preserved meals of the teacher who worked at a small institution was significantly higher than the teacher who worked at large institutions (p<0.01). 3. Between parents and teachers, several different view points about school lunch programs were detected. Most parents and teachers wanted that the school lunch to be fully cooked and served at the child education institution itself, but $12.2\%$ of parents and $14.4\%$ of teachers wanted a catering service. The teachers group preferred 'lunch box from home' and 'home partially prepared lunch' as an ideal meal serving type than the parent groups (p<0.01). And there were significantly different view points about price factors in school meals, teachers group highly answered that operating expenses must be added in meal prices. 4. The teacher groups' priorities of education activities during meal time were a significantly lower score than parents group in overall education activities. Teacher and parent groups pointed out that individual sanitation activities were most important of the education activities during meal time, but promoting good eating habits was the lowest score in both groups. 5. 'Improving taste and food quality' was most urgent in food service at child education centers, but there were significantly different view points between parent groups $(64.5\%)$ and teacher groups $(43.8\%)\;(p<0.05)$. They answered at a lower percent in 'employee qualified person' and 'cost control' point to improve food service, but there were also different opinions between the two groups (p<0.01). 6. As to the matter of the advantages and disadvantages of catering services, two group answered that the advantages of a catering service were 'convenience' and 'to solve facilities and labor problems', disadvantages were 'lower in food freshness' and 'sanitation problems'. There were also several different view pionts in catering services, the parents groups were more anxious about food sanitation than teachers. This study found several different view points about school food services among parents and teachers. To improve food services at child education institutions, there is a need to adjust the differences between the two groups through interactive communication channels and education and to employ dietitians as taking charge of adjusting roles between the two groups.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
• /
• v.17 no.4 s.38
• /
• pp.73-85
• /
• 2005

The purpose of this study was to present the activating schemes of nutrition education in elementary school curriculum. We examined the nutrition education status and perception of teachers on nutrition education in elementary school. This study was carried out using a self-administered questionnaire and subjects were 263 elementary school teachers in Gyeonggi province. All data in this research was analyzed through SAS program, and the frequency and percentage on each question were calculated. Data for each group was analyzed according to sex and teaching career and the groups were treated for significance by using chi-square test. Most of teachers taught the nutrition education as a part of practical In curriculum and thought that student's interest and participation on nutrition education was high. And the teachers understood that nutrition education at school curriculum is very necessary and effective. But most teachers had no experience or teacher training Program for nutrition education. They thought it was difficult to carry out nutrition education in school because of their poor nutritive knowledge, and lack in educational materials. Moreover, it is revealed that the teachers supposed that the activation of nutrition education in school requires schools to provide nutritive guidance to students in cooperation with the homes.

• The Journal of Korean Society for School & Community Health Education
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.61-82
• /
• 2000

The purpose of this study was to find out the general problems of school food service and to explore a way to improve it, by examining elementary school teacher's consciousness and attitude toward it that gave a big impact on children's development of food habit. For attaining the purpose, the following research questions were posed : 1) What's elementary school teacher attitude toward school food service management? 2) What's elementary school teacher attitude toward school food service effect on children? 3) What's elementary school teacher opinion about how to develop school food service? The subjects of study were 328 male or female teachers who served at elementary school in urban and rural area, including eup, myon, or farming and fishing villages, Kyonggi province. A questionnaire survey was conducted over them. The conclusions were as follows: 1) Teacher Attitude Toward School Food Service Management Concerning food service place, the subjects were more satisfied at food service room(73.3%) than at classroom(23.0%). They responded that food service room was more effective, than classroom, for food transportation, distribution and post-arrangement. Their satisfaction at food service place was significantly different. The older teachers considered personnel management and cooking room's sanitary management to be more efficient, and their age made a significant difference to their consciousness of these things. Many teachers(63.1%) thought the measures to prevent and manage group food poisoning were relatively efficient. The male teachers expressed more affirmative view on the efficiency of school food expense management and menu preparation than female teachers, and there was a significant disparity between male and female teachers. 2) Elementary School Food Service Effect School food service was thought to be very effective for physical growth(74.1%) and physical strength improvement(70.1%). Teachers at smaller school revealed more affirmative response toward school food service effect on correcting an unbalanced diet, and older teachers considered its effect on nutrition knowledge acquisition and learning outcome to be more great. Teachers at larger school put less value on its effect on table manners, and school size produced a significant difference. The number of teachers who thought school food service generally raised parent concern and support for school(36.6%) was a little more than that of teachers who didn't think so(15.2%). And the number of teachers who didn't consider its effect on improving parent food life to be good(29.3%) was slightly more than that of teachers who did. 3) School Food Service Reform Measure What's most urgently needed for better school food service management appeared to be an expansion of facilities concerned, followed by more effective food distribution and transport, cooking room's better sanitary management, more successful food poisoning prevention and management, more effective food expense management, and an increase of food service personnel in the order named. The most effective means of school food service education was found to be a creation of link system to family, followed by a development of school food service education program, a development of teaching materials, an insertion of school food service in curriculum, and teacher education in the order named.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.243-253
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate dietitians' needs of teaching materials about nutrition education for school children in Kyonggi and Chungnam(including Daejeon) areas. This study was carried out using questionnaires via e-mail or in class to the subjects of 166 elementary school dietitians as 68 in Kyonggi and 98 in Chungnam. The number of small(less than 700 meals), medium(700-1400 meals) and large(over 1400 meals) schools based on served meals daily were 48, 62 and 56, respectively. The results are as follows: Frequency of nutrition education for students as well as for teachers was samely very low as 'once per two months' and the education used to perform during lunch time mostly. For preparing nutrition education they obtained informations from the internet(64.0%). The main topics of nutrition education they used to covered were 'et's eat breakfast', 'table manners', 'the relations of body and nutrients', 'food waste', 'foods and calorie', etc.. The largest limit of nutrition education practices faced by school dietitians were pointed out as 'lacks of teaching materials' and 'counseling techniques'. Most dietitians wanted CD or substantial teaching materials for the practices, and required their contents covering 'cooking', 'food and calories', 'let’s eat various foods', 'relations of body and nutrients', 'regular meal is important’ and etc.. Since we expect nutrition teachers to be realized soon, nutrition education/counseling is emphasized more as their duty. Even though school dietitians revealed poor self-confidence, they were positive to get improved by reeducation of nutrition counseling methods and skills. If easy and suitable education materials(CD type) are developed as good as the school dietitians desired, the materials could contribute much to better nutrition education/counseling practices at schools.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.141-152
• /
• 2020

Homeroom teachers are not usually nutrition professionals, but they spend a lot of time with students in elementary school classrooms. This study was conducted to determine the association of homeroom teachers' nutrition education with the dietary habits of their classroom children. The subjects were 131 homeroom teachers and their 1,102 children from 17 elementary schools in Gyeonggi, Korea. Self-administered questionnaires to collect information on dietary habits were conducted in December 2016. The dietary habits were determined with the adherences to the Dietary Guidelines for Adults and Children, respectively, by coding the better diet life with a higher score. The significances between groups according to teachers' implementation of nutrition education (106 implemented, 25 not implemented) were analyzed by using SPSS at P<0.05. Implementing nutrition education was not associated with the dietary habits of teachers themselves, but their students. Therefore, the students of teachers who implemented nutrition education had significantly higher adherence to 8 items out of 19 items (P<0.05, P<0.01). More of the students considered themselves as non-picky eaters (P<0.05), tried to eat all the foods served at school lunch even when it contained unwanted ingredients (P<0.01), and agreed on the need of nutrition education (P<0.01), as compared to their counterparts. Conclusively, this study suggests that nutrition education delivered by homeroom teachers may be associated with more desirable dietary habits of students, even though homeroom teachers are not nutrition professionals. Therefore, efforts should be undertaken to develop and provide proper contents for homeroom teachers to use in nutrition education for elementary students.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.63-73
• /
• 2000

The purpose of this study was to investigate the status of nutrition education at elementary schools. A total of 226 elementary school teachers within Changwon and Milyang city participated in this study . The results of this study are as follows. The average score on a test of nutrition knowledge was 4.40 out of 10, and teachers of Milyang districts type scored significantly higher on nutrition knowledge than teacher of Changwon rural and Milyang rural districts. Only 9.0% of the teachers had nutrition education training. 64.1% of th total had teaching experience in nutrition, 91.0% of that was being taught as a part of physical education and home economics. The information source for nutrition education was mainly guide books and magazine and newspaper articles. Current nutrition education was being taught mainly by lecture(85.0%) but the preferred methods of teaching in nutrition education were small group discussion(44.3%), role-playing(22.9%) and lecture(21.4%). Audio visuals aids were used by 45.5% of the teachers and the most common of them were VTR(43.1%) chart(22.4%) as preferred audio visuals aids of them were VTR(71.9%) adn actual model(14.1%)

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
• /
• v.45 no.1
• /
• pp.64-79
• /
• 2012

The purpose of this study was to compare differences in role conflict, self efficacy, job satisfaction, and job involvement perceived by school nutrition teachers and dietitians. A total of 335 female school nutrition teachers and dietitians from Incheon area were surveyed by a self-report questionnaire in November 2010. Collected data were processed using SPSS 15.0. The reliability of the questionnaire was tested and differences between the two groups were analyzed using the Student's t-test, the chi-square test, and a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The job satisfaction level of nutrition teachers was higher than that of dietitians. The effect of role conflict and job satisfaction for nutrition teachers and dietitians was different according to age. In addition, self-efficacy, job satisfaction, and job involvement of nutrition teachers and dietitians were influenced by their annual salaries. The frequency of meals served also affected role conflict, job satisfaction, and job involvement of the nutrition teachers and dietitians, and the effect of job involvement by the nutrition teachers and dietitians was different according to meal service type. Therefore, it is necessary to establish strategies for resolving role conflicts among school foodservice specialists and improve their self-efficacy for enhancing consumer's satisfaction with the general quality of school food service. These efforts may contribute to job satisfaction and job involvement of food service specialists and ultimately to the productivity of food service and the establishment of food service specialist roles.