Recipient Organization
MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIV
(N/A)
MISSISSIPPI STATE,MS 39762
Performing Department
Food Sci Nutrition Hlth Promo
Non Technical Summary
Mississippi and Alabama are predominantly agricultural states that send the majority of their farm crops to food companies in other states for added value processing. There is a need for skilled workers in the area of food science to help develop the food industry in these states. In addition, Mississippi and Alabama ranks last, or close to last, in almost every leading health outcome, including obesity, hypertension, and diabetes. This research will be conducted to benefit high school teachers and high school students in Alabama and Mississippi through 1) training 9-12th grade FANH teachers to deliver food science and health-based instruction in three schools in both MS and AL; 2) evaluating the implementation process of food science and health education materials to increase exposure to food science and improve health literacy in three high schools in both MS and AL; 3) evaluating the awareness and knowledge of food science and health literacy among high school students before and after implementation of the food science and health-based instruction. This research will increase teachers self-efficacy to teach food science and health science and increase student's knowledge of these disciplines. This research will also train students for jobs in the food industry as well as promote living healthier lives. The long term goal of this research collaboration is to produce a trained workforce so food companies have greater opportunities and incentives to open added value food plants in Mississippi, Alabama and other Southern States.
Animal Health Component
70%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
30%
Applied
70%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Institutional Long-range GoalsThis research program is being established to increase health literacy across the states and to raise awareness and interest in food science and/or related disciplines and career opportunities among high school students and teachers. The research team's vision is to implement food science and health education instruction in high schools to encourage more high school students to enroll and/or enter in food and health science academic and career pathways after high school graduation. Through the research initiative, there is potential to increase health literacy among teens in MS and AL, which could in turn improve health outcomes. This research initiative is part of an initiative spearheaded by Mississippi State University and their President Mark Keenum to help address global food security (Mississippi State University, 2013). Keenum explains "If food production does not increase significantly, the number of people living in poverty will increase greatly. We are compelled to help feed the world and alleviate suffering, first, because it's the right thing to do, but also because it is important to our national security." Mississippi State has expertise pertinent to every aspect of the food chain, including crop production, post-harvest processing, livestock, aquaculture, food policy, water resources, geospatial technologies and biofuels. Increasing health literacy and food science awareness will contribute to food security by empowering students to choose career fields in health and food science that will increase the number of workers in these fields and contribute to greater food security in MS, AL, and globally.ObjectivesTrain six 9-12th grade Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Human Sciences (FANH) teachers and health educators to increase self-efficacy to teach food science and health education instruction in three high schools each in Mississippi and Alabama.Pilot food science and health education materials to increase exposure to food science and to improve health literacy in three high schools each in Mississippi and Alabama.Determine the levels of awareness and knowledge of food science and health literacy among high school students before and after implementation of food science and health education instruction in three high schools in each of Mississippi and Alabama.
Project Methods
Objective 1: Train six 9-12th grade FANH teachers and health educators to increase self-efficacy to teach food science and health education instruction in three high schools each in Mississippi and Alabama (Gardner, Schilling, Peterson, and Hendrix)The food science and health education instruction will be implemented in three high schools in MS and three high schools in AL. The three MS high schools are Tremont Attendance Center (Itawamba County), Career High School Career Complex (Hinds County), and Clarkdale High School (Lauderdale County), and the three high schools in AL are located in the Huntsville City Schools System. As depicted in the research study design flow diagram found in Figure 1., one teacher from each high school will be trained by MSU's Health Promotion Faculty and graduate research assistant in food science from MSU to implement the food science and health education instruction in their respective classrooms.Two teacher training sessions will be hosted by the graduate research assistant; one hosted at Mississippi State University and one hosted at Alabama A&M University. An MSU health promotion faculty member and a food science graduate student will conduct the in-service training that will showcase techniques of proper implementation of the food science and health education instruction to increase teacher self-efficacy to teach food science and health in their FANH classes. The teacher training workshop will be available to all MS and AL FANH teachers and will include all food science and health education modules and teaching resources for this study. The workshop will provide teachers with teaching methods to effectively implement FNH based lessons in their classrooms. Specifically, the high school teachers will be exposed to the developed module lesson plans, learn to conduct key food science and health education activities, and receive a teaching toolkit including essential activities supplies (i.e., lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, lecture notes/scripts, key supplies for each classroom activity) to enhance and support student learning and the quality of 9-12th grade instruction in order to help meet current and future national FANH sciences workplace needs. Upon the teacher's consent, a survey will be used to measure teachers' self-efficacy to implement food science and health education instruction in their high school classes before and after the teacher training. An adapted version of the Teaching Engineering Self Efficacy Scale, originally used to measure teachers' self-efficacy of teaching engineering in K-12 classroomswill be used to capture the teachers' confidence to teach food science and health education material in their classrooms. A 5-point Likert-type scale of agreement will be used to describe teachers' confidence to teach food science and health education material in their classrooms. Objective 2: Pilot food science and health education materials to increase exposure to food science and to improve health literacy in three high schools each in Mississippi and Alabama (Schilling, Gardner, Verghese, Herring, and Hendrix)The six participating FANH and health high school teachers will be asked to conduct this pilot study in two sections of a multiple-section course each semester. One class will serve as the intervention group, and the other class will serve as the control group. Participating classes will consist of 25-30 students in grades 9 to 12. Students in the intervention group will be exposed to the nine 1-hour modules that incorporate lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on food science and health (FNH) activities, while the control group will not receive the food science and health education instruction. Prior to implementation, the teacher will talk to students in participating classes about the food science and health education instruction modules that will be implemented. They will distribute parental consent forms for students to take home to parents to obtain permission to participate in the project's evaluation. Those students who return signed parental permission forms will be asked to sign an assent form agreeing to participate in the project's evaluation. Students with both parental permission and assent will be considered "enrolled" in the research study. No penalties exist for parent and/or student decisions to not participate in the evaluation. Multiple methods will be used to evaluate the process of piloting the curriculum. First, to assess fidelity, teachers will use laboratory notebooks to self-report on whether material was implemented as planned by responding to a series of questions. These notebooks will be reviewed by the research team so feedback can be provided to teachers during implementation to enhance delivery as well as to inform revisions. Second, at least one member from the research team will make a minimum one visit during implementation to assess the extent to which the FNH instruction is implemented as designed. A detailed observation checklist and rating procedure will be used to assess the comprehensiveness and process of content delivery. Third, one-on-one interviews will be conducted with participating teachers at the end of curriculum implementation to gain their feedback on the implementation process, instructional materials, and provided resources to further enhance and support curriculum development. Objective 3: Determine the levels of awareness and knowledge of food science and health literacy among high school students before and after implementation of food science and health education instruction in three high schools in each of Mississippi and Alabama (Schilling, Gardner, Peterson, Verghese, Herring, and Hendrix)As described, high school students enrolled in FANH courses taught by trained high school teachers will participate in this program. A pre and post assessment, administered by the classroom teacher, will be used to determine and compare students' awareness and knowledge of food science and health among and between the control and intervention groups. A 3-part 20-35 minute pre- and post-assessment will be used to evaluate students' awareness and knowledge of food science and health literacy. Part 1 of the assessment will collect general demographic information about the student. Demographics that will be captured include age, gender, and grade level. Part 2 will assess participants' awareness in food science and health concepts and career opportunities addressed in the nine modules using a 5-point Likert-type scale. In this study, student awareness is defined as the level of familiarity with a specified food science concept and/or health topic (Shearer et al., 2014). This instrument will be tailored from pre-existing instruments, including the AFST curriculum evaluation. Part 3 of the student assessment will evaluate the students' knowledge of food science and health concepts. To assess student knowledge of food science, a variety of multiple choice, true/false, and matching questions constructed from each module of the program. Frequency of correct responses to each question in Part 3 of the pre- and post-assessment will be used to evaluate students' baseline and gained knowledge, respectively.Additionally, to assess health literacy, the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine--Short Form (REALM-SF) will be administered by the trained teachers to gauge health literacy among the high school students. The REALM-SF is a 7-item word recognition test that gives healthcare providers a quick assessment of health literacy among individual patients (Arozullah et al., 2007). The REALM-SF is a validated instrument that provides grade-level assignments ranging from third-grade and below as the least literate category to high school as the most literate category (Arozullah et al., 2007). Administration of the exam should take approximately 2 minutes per student.