Nutrition education interests of third-grade students

Information from young children concerning their interests in educational goals and concepts can provide valuable information to professionals involved in curriculum development/evaluation. This study was designed to determine nutrition-related interests of young children, or, more specifically, to determine if (a) there were relationships between their nutrition-related interests and their knowledge, attitudes, and practices; (b) children agreed with nutrition education specialists concerning the importance of nutrition concepts; (c) children who scored higher on tests of nutrition-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices agreed more with nutrition education specialists than did those with lower scores; (d) there was agreement among children within nutrition education curriculum goals; (e) there were differences in nutrition-related interests of girls and boys; and (f) there were differences in nutrition-related interests of children attending rural schools and those in urban schools.

The study was conducted in collaboration with Tennessee's Nutrition Education and Training (NET) Program evaluation. Scores from tests conducted through the NET evaluation were used to measure nutrition-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices. A sample of 63 third-grade students in eight schools throughout East Tennessee was selected for the present study. Children in this sample were interviewed separately using a structured interview schedule including a picture Q-sort.

There were relationships between children's nutrition-related interests and knowledge and interests and attitudes, but not between their interests and practices. Third-grade children agreed with nutrition education specialists concerning which concepts were important to teach at third-grade level. Children with high scores on tests of nutrition-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices did not agree more with the specialists than did those with low scores. Third-graders did not demonstrate agreement within all goals. Further, there were differences in nutrition-related interests of girls and boys and differences in interests of children attending rural schools versus those in urban schools. Conclusions have implications concerning presentation of nutrition concepts to young children, the use of student input in curriculum development/evaluation, and methods of obtaining information concerning abstract subjects from young children.