March 2004, Volume 10 No. 1

ARTICLE 5

Effectiveness of Various Nutrition Education Teaching Methods for High School Students: a Case Study in Alabama, United States

Marta Sovyanhadi & Malcolm A. Cort
Family and Consumer Sciences Department, Oakwood College, 7000 Adventist Blvd, NW, Huntsville, Alabama 35896, United States

Abstract
This study examined a nutrition education program consisting of two content sessions: food-label reading, and food pyramid guide.  In each session two groups of nutrition interns utilized four teaching methods: role-play/video presentation/display, grocery store tour, overhead transparency and lecture, and power point lecture, among a group of (N = 29) ninth grade, high school students. The purpose was to determine the most effective method of delivering nutrition education to high school students. Analysis using the Kruskal Wallis One-way Analysis of Variance showed that the combination method of role-playing/video presentation/visual display was most effective in the food pyramid session (χ² = 8.13, p = .04). While this method was given the highest rank in the food-label reading session it was not statistically significant.  These results show that a combination of methods classified as the teacher’s style, is more effective than a style that involves a single teaching method.

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