NUTRITION KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES OF SECONDARY TEACHERS OF HEALTH/PHYSICAL EDUCATION, HOME ECONOMICS, SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Likert, semantic differential and Galileo scales for measuring nutrition attitudes were developed. Additionally, the nutrition knowledge, attitudes and practices of secondary teachers of health/physical education, home economics, science and social science were assessed. Data from 32 teacher interviews were used to formulate a questionnaire containing Likert and semantic differential attitude scales, demographic and nutrition practices questions, and an instrument for Galileo multidimensional attitude assessment. The two instruments and the Michigan State University Nutrition Knowledge Test (NKT) were mailed to a random sample of 1191 Michigan secondary teachers of health/physical education, home economics, science and social science.;Significant differences were found in distributions of teachers who taught food/nutrition by subject, sex and nutrition interest (p (LESSTHEQ) .001). Teachers who taught food/nutrition had higher NKT scores and more favorable attitudes toward teaching food/nutrition than those who did not, but the same attitudes toward their own nutrition and same years of teaching experience. Those who taught also had taken more courses but not more inservice training, except for home economics teachers. Topics taught differed across the subject groups (p (LESSTHEQ) .001). Significant correlations were noted between scores and other variables.;Of 518 teachers completing the survey, 43 percent had never taken a food/nutrition course, 63 percent never had inservice food/nutrition training. Distributions of teachers by sex and years of teaching experience across the four subjects were significantly different (p (LESSTHEQ) .001). The overall mean NKT score was 57 percent. Home economics teachers' score of 70 percent was signficantly higher than those of the other teacher groups (p (LESSTHEQ) .05). Home economics teachers reported the most positive attitudes toward teaching nutrition on a 14-statement Likert and a 7-pair semantic differential scale. Significant mean differences were found among teacher groups on the Likert scale and among three teacher groups on the semantic differential scale (p (LESSTHEQ) .05). Significant score variation across subjects was found on the semantic differential personal nutrition scale, but Scheffe's test found no differences among the means of the four subject groups. Alpha reliability coefficients for the three scales ranged from .72 to .96.