| A review of six hundred journal articles in health and nutrition revealed that (1) emphasis on nutrition education, K-4, varied significantly nationally, locally; (2) nutrition curricula emphasized cognitive skills; (3) teachers lacked training skills in nutrition; (4) content foci in actual classroom practice were repetitive; (5) the exact placement of nutrition in primary grade curricula was nebulous; (6) recent researchers tended to work from their own unique premise; (7) results of nutrition education teaching K-4 lacked standardized measuring tools; (8) instructional television can have a role in dissemination of nutrition education. Classroom experiences of the researchers revealed similar results.;Using the probability level of .05, measured outcomes supported by adjusted posttest mean scores and an alpha significance of 0.0001, The Nutrition Edition Curriculum second grade students did better than the traditional students in both attitude and cognitive phases of testing. Further, all students receiving The Nutrition Edition Curriculum, did equally well, at the 0.0001 level of significance upon evaluation of their adjusted posttest means. Traditionally taught students showed no significant differences in their adjusted posttest mean scores from the control group. The Nutrition Edition Curriculum was the mediating variable in producing differences in adjusted posttest mean scores in evaluation of attitude and cognitive scores.;Efforts to address these issues included the creation of a six weeks second grade nutrition curriculum entitled: The Nutrition Edition Curriculum, to be used to teach nutrition either using cable television or using teacher presentation. The curriculum was pilot tested. A standardized pre- and posttest was created which measured food preferences, food attitudes, and nutrition knowledge. A non-equivalent control group design was used to test the six hypotheses. Multivariant analysis of covariance was used to evaluate posttest scores. A total of eight classrooms in south suburban Dayton, Ohio, with an n = 175 were used in the study. In addition to the four classrooms using The Nutrition Edition Curriculum, two classrooms used their own traditionally used materials, and two classrooms were used as controls. All the teachers in the study, with the exception of the control room teachers, received ten hours of graduate level nutrition education. |
