Delivering Food Safety Education to Middle School Students Using a Web‐Based, Interactive, Multimedia, Computer Program

Abstract

More than 76 million persons become ill from foodborne pathogens in the UnitedStates each year. To reduce these numbers, food safety education efforts need to be targeted at not only adults, but school children as well. The middle school grades are ideal for integrating food safety education into the curriculum while simultaneously contributing to national and state education standards in science, technology, and family and consumer sciences. For this project, a multimedia, self-paced online resource for delivering a food safety curriculum to middle school children was developed. Animated characters were used to deliver the lesson content. The application also included video segments, quiz feedback, and interactive games and activities. The effectiveness of the Web site was evaluated using validated cognitive and attitudinal assessment tools, and by comparing student cognitive gains to individual student learning styles. Participants were recruited from 6 middle schools in 5 states, totaling 217 students (20 sixth graders, 157 seventh graders, and 40 eighth graders). The results show that students had statistically significant modest gains in pretest to posttest knowledge and enjoyed using the Web site. The 6th grade students had significantly lower pretest to posttest improvement compared to 7th and 8th grade students, suggesting that this program may not be appropriate for this grade level. Furthermore, the results indicate that this Web-based computer application meets the needs of varying individual student learning styles.

Over-confident and under-competent: exploring the importance of food safety education specific to high school students

“…Broadly, these findings are consistent with the literature on middle school and college aged individuals, who also have low food literacy and poor food safety knowledge (Abbot et al, 2009;Green and Knechtges, 2015;Haapala and Probart, 2004;Lynch et al, 2008;Pedigo et al, 2009;Quick et al, 2013;Richards et al, 2008;Yarrow et al, 2009), limited food handling experience and skills (Abbot et al, 2012;Haapala and Probart, 2004;Morrone and Rathbun, 2003;Nesbitt et al, 2009), and who regularly engage in risky food handling practices and eating behaviours (Abbot et al, 2012;Altekruse et al, 1999;ByrdBredbenner et al, 2008;Haapala and Probart, 2004;Nesbitt et al, 2009;Patil et al, 2005). Although differences in study times and populations preclude specific comparisons, our findings from high school students may suggest that such factors may remain relatively unchanged across the middle school to college years.…”

“…They often work in the food industry (Haapala and Probart, 2004;Usalcas, 2005;Yarrow et al, 2009) and are beginning to take greater responsibility for food handling (Burke and Dworkin, 2015). They also have low food safety knowledge (Abbot et al, 2009;Green and Knechtges, 2015;Haapala and Probart, 2004;Lynch et al, 2008;Majowicz et al, 2017;Pedigo et al, 2009;Q uick et al, 2013;Richards et al, 2008;Yarrow et al, 2009), lack safe food handling experience and skills (Abbot et al, 2012;Haapala and Probart, 2004;Majowicz et al, 2017;Morrone and Rathbun, 2003;Nesbitt et al, 2009), and engage in risky food handling practices (Abbot et al, 2012;Altekruse et al, 1999;Haapala and Probart, 2004).…”

“…To date, research has predominantly assessed the food safety education needs of middle school (Byrd-Bredbenner et al, 2010;Lynch et al, 2008;Kim et al, 2012;Quick et al, 2013) …”

An application of adaptive games-based learning based on learning style to teach SQL

“…Amongst the papers found, only two research papers contain empirical evidence related to learning styles: Lynch et al (2008) and Hwang et al (2012). Lynch et al (2008) developed Ootle-U to teach aspects of food safety.…”

A Literature Review of Empirical Research on the Effects of Digital Games on Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences / Pregled literature o empirijskim istraživanjima o utjecaju digitalnih igara na stilove učenja i višestruke inteligencije

“…This proved the existence of the correlation between spatial intelligence and the complementary educational images. Lynch et al (2008) investigated the influence of the web-based game on the learning styles and achievements on the sample of 300 US students. They concluded that the results of the experiment did not present statistically significant correlation between gameplay and learning styles.…”