 |
The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
|
The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Nancy Brenowitz, MS, RD, Department of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Maryland, 3304 Marie Mount Hall, College Park, MD 20910 and Cynthia Reeves Tuttle, BS, MPH, PhD, Director, Bread for the World, 50 F Street, NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20001, 202-639-9400, nbrenowitz@gtcinternet.com.
The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Nutrition-Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale (NTSES) in order to quantify the nutrition-teaching self-efficacy of Maryland elementary teachers. Nutrition education can improve children’s dietary behaviors, however many hours of instruction are necessary to achieve this effect. Those teachers with higher nutrition-teaching self-efficacy spend more time teaching nutrition. A background questionnaire was used to gather information on teacher characteristics and current classroom nutrition teaching practices. The NTSES was adapted from science and health-teaching self-efficacy scales, reviewed by experts and pre-tested with elementary teachers. Crohnbach’s alpha and factor analysis were used to establish internal consistency and refine the scale. The NTSES was available online to teachers throughout the state. Participants included 80 elementary school teachers from 16 counties in Maryland. ANOVA and t-tests were used to compare mean NTSES scores based on teacher characteristics. Spearman correlations were used to examine relationships between other teacher characteristics and time spent teaching nutrition. Higher self-efficacy scores were associated with teaching grades 3-5 (P<0.01), being interested in nutrition (P<0.001), having had exposure to nutrition in college (P<0.05), believing that teachers exert a strong influence on students’ dietary intake (P<0.01) and spending more time teaching nutrition (P<0.03). The influence of training on increasing time spent teaching nutrition in the classroom appears to occur through an increase in individual nutrition-teaching self-efficacy. In order to increase the time spent on teaching nutrition in the elementary classroom, nutrition education efforts should be directed at increasing elementary teachers’ nutrition-teaching self-efficacy.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Nutrition, Self-Efficacy
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.