The Use of Online Focus Groups to Design An Online Food Safety Education Intervention

Abstract

In the development of an online food safety education intervention for college students, online focus groups were used to determine the appropriate format and messages. Focus groups are often used in qualitative research and formative evaluation of public health programs, yet traditional focus groups can be both difficult and expensive to coordinate. Online focus groups offer an alternative means of discovering the attitudes and opinions of hard-to-reach populations. Online focus groups were facilitated in a university-supported web-based learning environment (E-Learning Commons) with students at the University of Georgia, and students discussed questions related to food safety and Internet-based education. Focus group transcripts were categorized by responses to each of the questions, and results were reported in terms of frequency. Students identified personally relevant food safety messages, preferred delivery tools and strategies for food safety education, and known sources for food safety information. Online focus groups were found to be an effective and inexpensive means of determining students' preferences for learning about food safety using the Internet and social media. Results from the online focus groups were used to design a social media-based food safety education intervention to improve young adults' food safety attitudes, practices and knowledge.

Scoping Review of Research on the Effectiveness of Food-Safety Education Interventions Directed at Consumers

“…We identified 7 articles published since 2010 that explored the effectiveness of social media-based interventions and 22 studies published since 2001 that investigated the effectiveness of online information/training interventions. This largely aligns with increasing accessibility to the Internet and preferences of young adults for social media and web-based food safety information ( Jacob et al, 2010;Mayer and Harrison, 2012;Nesbitt et al, 2014). Alternatively, previous focus groups of elderly populations indicate a preference for traditional media (e.g., television, print media) (Cates et al, 2004;Powell, 2007;Kosa et al, 2011).…”

A food recall case study in Australia – Towards the development of food safety applications for consumers

“…A significant amount of research has been conducted in areas related to consumer behavior such as consumer decision making, consumer adoption and use of technology, consumer food purchase behavior, consumer food safety behavior as well as areas related to bridging gaps between the firm and the consumers such as knowledge management strategies, mobile application technologies, traceability technologies etc. (Kuttschreuter et al, 2014;Mayer & Harrison, 2012). As this research context is multidisciplinary in nature, there is need to identify the gaps in relation to consumers' responses and decisions about information delivery mechanisms around post-purchase food safety.…”

Variability, visuals, and interaction: online learning recommendations from social work students

“…More universities are offering a variety of 'e-learning' style classes, and graduate social work programs are offering completely online programs (i.e., both practice and theoretical courses offered online; Davis et al, 2019). Further, e-learning is well documented in trainings and educational programs in other disciplines (e.g., Mayer & Harrison, 2012;Zhang et al, 2015). In an e-learning format, students typically take full coursework online, and also complete compulsory and supplementary trainings for their degree using e-learning platforms (Zhang et al, 2015).…”