An official website of the United States government.
Objective 1: Conduct a research study to evaluate the efficacy of Food Safety in the Classroom across diverse classroom settings and with a variety of student populations <P>
Objective 2: Create a user-friendly Food Safety in the Classroom website to enable classroom teachers from any state functional access to the curriculum <P>Objective 3: Develop a marketing and long-term sustainability plan <P>Objective 4: Recruit new school system participants through networking at educational conferences <P>Objective 5: Recruit and train additional county extension agents <P>Objective 6: Secure additional funding for the Food Safety in the Classroom program from non-federal sources <P>
Year 1: Middle schools participating in the research study will be selected, and the teachers prepared to implement the curriculum via the training workshop (Objective 1, Tasks 1 & 2). A new Food Safety in the Classroom website will be launched to make the program accessible to a wider range of teachers and school systems (Objective 2). Project staff will recruit at least five new schools and train 10 new extension agents to implement and promote the program (Objectives 4 & 5). <P>Year 2: The research study schools will implement the curriculum, and the relevant data will be collected by project staff (Objective 1, Task 3). The UT College of Communication and Information, along with project staff, will complete a marketing and sustainability plan (Objective 3). Project staff will recruit at least five new schools and train 10 new extension agents to implement and promote the program (Objectives 4 & 5). <P>Year 3: Data collected from the research study will be analyzed, evaluated, and published in appropriate journals (Objective 1, Task 3). Project staff will recruit at least five new schools and train 10 new extension agents to implement and promote the program (Objectives 4 & 5). A five year commitment from a vested program sponsor will be obtained (Objective 6). <P>Outputs: Activities: execution and analysis of a quasi-experiemtnal, well-matched control research study of curriculum in diverse settings, implementation of curriculum, assessement of participating students and teachers. <P>Events: teacher and extension agent training sessions and workshops, presentation of results at state and national conferences.<P> Products: website (www.foodsafetyintheclassroom.org), curriculum, train-the-trainer manuals
NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Foodborne illness is a preventable epidemic. One solution to this problem is to provide food safety information and reinforcement of safe food handling practices to adolescents during their formative years. An ideal place to do this would be in their classrooms. Unfortunately, getting food safety into the classroom is difficult due to accountability testing mandated by No Child Left Behind. Teachers do not have time to teach "extraneous" topics such as food safety. In a previous NIFSI grant, we developed an interdisciplinary curriculum that taught state mandated concepts using food safety as a theme. The data collected for that proposal indicates that this curriculum is effective at improving food safety awareness and can be the vehicle by which meaningful food safety education is taught in middle school classrooms. This proposal seeks to take Food Safety in the Classroom from the pilot test stage to accessibility for every middle school classroom. To accomplish this mission, data are required demonstrating the project's efficacy in diverse classroom settings and to capture changes in behavior beyond those that are self-reported. Additionally, a sustainability plan needs to be designed that provides a support infrastructure including web resources, partnership support, and non-federal external funding. The completion of this proposal will result in a cohesive curricular program that can be accessed and successfully implemented by any school system. Food Safety in the Classroom will provide teachers with the opportunity to prepare their students for standardized testing while arming them with the knowledge necessary to prevent foodborne illnesses.
<P>
APPROACH: The research team will employ a mixed-methods research design integrating selected quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques appropriate for addressing the evaluation study questions (introduced in the following section). To assess the impact of project interventions, the research team will apply a quasi-experimental design (well-matched control group) using pre-, post-, and follow-up participant assessments (e.g., students, teachers, and parents) and other relevant participant and school data. Due to contextual educational circumstances rendering randomized control trials inappropriate and impractical, a quasi-experimental design offers the most rigorous research strategy available to support evidenced-based assessment of the projects effectiveness. The effectiveness of teacher workshops and student instruction (curriculum implementation) interventions will be determined by comparing intervention and control group participants on pre/post/follow-up assessment results for associated changes in content knowledge, skills, and related dispositions (behaviors). The specific learning objectives for teacher training workshops and student instruction in food safety (e.g., knowledge, skills, and dispositions) will provide the foundation for the pre and post assessments. The research team will analyze pre-assessment results (including participant characteristics) to provide evidence of group similarity, a necessary condition for demonstrating meaningful, statistically significant group differences. The evaluation team will also measure teacher perceptions of training including perceived strengths and weaknesses. To assess the context of the project and its broader impact on participants and school settings, the research team will use selected descriptive and qualitative research techniques. These techniques will include systematic observations, interviews, surveys, and content analyses of project/school products and artifacts. Descriptive and qualitative analysis will enable the identification of patterns/themes related to the projects broader impact on participants, stakeholders, and participating school organizations. Multiple data collection and data analysis techniques will provide the evaluation team with the necessary data to triangulate study results. Student Content Knowledge and Disposition Data will be collected immediately before and after the intervention, and several weeks after the intervention (3 measures via repeated measures ANOVA design). One content test will be administered to students in the comparison group. Teacher Data will be collected (food safety content knowledge, pedagogy, project perceptions) through the administration of teacher self-reports and content tests (pre/post/follow-up). One content test will be administered to the comparison group teachers. Additional data will include project staff interviews, analysis of the project web-site, and related project reports and documents.