Abstracts Economics

Nutrition education for high school girls using programed instruction

by Jeanne Esterman Polak

This study compared programed instruction to the reading, lecture, and discussion method with high school girls enrolled in Foods and Management classes. A module of programed instruction dealing with protein nutrition was developed and tested in the writer???s classes. The program was administered to seventy???three students who served as the experimental treatment group. Eighty-one students were given the same material using reading, assignments, lecture, and discussion. This was the conventional treatment group. Completion time was about the same for both groups. The post-test, administered to both groups, included a thirty question sub-test on protein nutrition. The scores obtained from the post-test were used to measure the differences between the two groups. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences between the two groups. The group using the programed material scored significantly higher on the thirty item sub - test than the group who received traditional instruction. These differences were significant at the .01 level. However, scores obtained from the remainder of the post-test were not significantly different for the two groups. This result tended to affirm that the two groups were randomly selected. The results indicate that exposure of the student to programed instruct ion may be a better method for learning nutrition.