Effectiveness of a college course focused on evaluation of health claims.

This study measured the effectiveness of a college course designed to instruct students to make critical evaluations of therapeutic claims for foods, nutrient supplements, weight-reduction products and diets, and alternative healthcare systems. Experimental and comparison groups were pretested and posttested to determine changes in source reliance and cognitive learning. The experimental group received instruction in five cognitive areas: (1) health and nutrition quackery, (2) consumer protection, (3) basic concepts in health and nutrition, (4) nutritional supplements and health foods, and (5) conventional and unconventional treatment of chronic diseases. The experimental group scored significantly higher in all five conceptual areas on the posttest, and in each case scored significantly higher than the comparison group did. Both groups rated medical/scientific sources of health and nutrition information as highly accurate during the two survey periods. The experimental group showed a change in source reliance, moving from dependence on the popular print media and individuals without formal education in a health field to medical/scientific sources, whereas the comparison group continued to use the popular press and electronic media. Findings suggest that a source targeted to the needs and interests of a specific group can bring about significant increases in knowledge gain and desirable changes in source reliance.

Competencies in nutrition that U.S. medical students should acquire.

The nutrition education that most medical students receive is inadequate in quantity and quality, according to the National Research Council, which conducted a study of nutrition education in one-third of the medical schools in the United States. This finding stimulated the creation of the present study, which identified basic competencies in the field of nutrition that medical students should acquire and obtained the opinions of 484 medical school faculty members concerning both the importance of these competencies and where in the medical school curriculum students should acquire them. Of 39 competencies, the faculty members judged that 33 should be included in medical school curricula. Those rated most important were competencies in the use of enteral and parenteral feeding techniques in patient therapy, the improvement of fluid and electrolyte imbalances, and knowledge of the role of nutrition in the identification and management of selected disease states. There was significant agreement in ratings and curriculum placements by preclinical and clinical faculty members.

Programmed instruction in institutional purchasing for dietetic students.

A programmed instruction unit in institutional purchasing for dietetic students was developed and evaluated. The unit is compact, simple to use, and could serve as an overview or review of institutional purchasing by dietetic students. Subjects were forty-five dietetic students in coordinated undergraduate dietetic programs, dietetic internships, and dietetic traineeships, with two institutions represented in each group. The programmed unit was effective, because cognitive achievement post-test scores were significantly higher (24 per cent) than pre-test scores. The unit was equally effective with the three groups, which did not differ significantly in pre- and post-test scores, gain test scores, or attitude toward programmed instruction scale scores at the end of the unit. Interns had higher grad point averages (GPA) than students in coordinated undergraduate programs. All students spent an average of 1 hr. completing the unit, although trainees used more times. An attitude scale showed favorable attitudes by the students toward programmed instruction. Significant positive relationships were found between pre-test scores and GPAs, and post-test scores and GPAs. A questionnaire showed that instructors liked the unit, found it useful, and would use it again. The findings of this study suggest that programmed instruction units in other phases of dietetic education could be developed and used to present factual material, give an overview of a topic, help students to review, and/or save time in classroom instruction.