Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Richie Cobb
Dr. Bude Su
Table of Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Methodology ................................................................................................................................... 3
Hypothesis................................................................................................................................... 3
Prototype ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Learners....................................................................................................................................... 4
Results ............................................................................................................................................. 6
Recommendations ....................................................................................................................... 7
Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 8
Appendix A ................................................................................................................................... 10
Appendix B ................................................................................................................................... 12
Appendix C ................................................................................................................................... 13
References ..................................................................................................................................... 14
EVALUATIONO OF NUTRITION AND FOOD SECURITY TRAINING 3
Introduction
This report examines an online training module published by the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO) titled Nutrition, Food Security, and Livelihoods:
Basic Concepts. The organization is an agency within the United Nations with the goal of ending
hunger around the world. According to the FAO, this module is a pre-release version, so I feel
that it is a good candidate for testing its effectiveness. My bachelor’s degree is in collaborative
heath and human service with an emphasis on public health, so this topic is of particular interest
to me. Nutrition and food security are topics that should be of concern to everyone, yet most
people do not realize how many people go hungry each day around the world. A short training
module like this may be a great way to empower others with an understanding of nutrition and
food security how it affects the livelihoods of people around the world.
Methodology
Hypothesis
The research hypothesis is that when learners take the eLearning module on nutrition and
food security, test scores will increase thereby increasing learners’ knowledge of nutrition and
food security. The null hypothesis is that there will no increase in test scores and no increase of
Prototype
The prototype for this evaluation, published by the FAO of the United Nations, is titled
Nutrition, Food Security, and Livelihoods: Basic Concepts. The training is an online eLearning
module with an estimated time investment of 35-minutes for the learner. The module is free and
is available online – the course can be taken on the FAO website or downloaded. Learners are
The module is intended for professionals from a variety of sectors, including agriculture,
health, education, and social protection, that are involved in the decision-making processes and
policy making regarding food and nutrition programs (FAO, 2018). College students pursuing a
degree in a related field, such as health and human services, pubic health, or public policy and
administration would also be appropriate targets for this training as they are soon to be
professionals in the field. With that in mind, this prototype was chosen due to its ability to
As seen in figure 1, the curse objectives are for the learner to define and differentiate key
investments, and policies that address nutrition problems, and 3) evaluate the nutritional
outcomes of programmers, investments, and policies (FAO, 2018, slide 1). The module meets
objectives by defining key concepts and engaging the learner in activities, as seen in Figure 2.
After material for a topic has been presented, the learner is given the opportunity to complete an
activity to demonstrate retention of material and the ability to apply what they have learned.
These assessments are the source of the pre and post test used to perform this evaluation.
Learners
The learner group for this assessment consists of current undergraduate college students
and recent college graduates (recent for the purposes of this evaluation is defined at graduating
with a bachelor’s degree Dec 2017 and later). This group was chosen because it reflects a sample
makeup of a typical college class should this module be incorporated into an existing college
course. I chose college students who majored in Health and Human Services, Public
Administration, or Public Health as the content of this module closely relates to their respective
degrees or coursework.
EVALUATIONO OF NUTRITION AND FOOD SECURITY TRAINING 5
I sent out an invitation to 15 college students whom I know are recent graduates of
CUMB’s Collaborative Health and Human Services major or are currently enrolled. Of the
potential respondents, 12 replied that they would be willing to take the course and associated
evaluations. Of those, 10 completed the course, pre and posttests. I acknowledge that since I
know most of these students, there could be bias in the results. However, I stressed the
importance of completing this activity without regard to how it may affect my evaluation. I asked
for honest feedback as I highly value their input. Perhaps a better method would have been to
reach out to a public health instructor for a health and nutrition course, but I did not have the
time to make that happen. Should I repeat this study, I would take that approach.
For respondents who agreed to participate in this evaluation, I emailed a PDF pre and
posttest and attached it to the email with along the course link. Respondents were instructed to
take the pretest first, compete the course, and then take the posttest immediately after. I estimated
the time investment to be 45 minutes. The course length is approximately 35 minutes, allowing
an estimated time of 10 minutes complete the pre and post testing. Since the tests are short and
the course can easily be completed sooner than the estimate, I felt 45 minutes to be an accurate
Respondents were instructed that once they follow the link to the course, they would have
to register to get access to the course. Since I created my own testing tool, I did not see a need to
capture any quiz data from the eLearning module. Respondents had the ability to take the module
online or download it, although I did not measure which method they chose as it was not relevant
Upon completion of the module and testing, respondents either emailed back their
completed surveys or physically handed them in to me. Since many of the respondents were
fellow alumni, we are in occasional contact making this possible. Once I received the 10
Results
Expected Outcomes
Respondents were expected to meet the stated objectives for the training module. They
should be able to define and differentiate key concepts of 1) assessing the nutrition situation, 2)
design and implement programmers, investments, and policies that address nutrition problems,
and 3) evaluate the nutritional outcomes of programmers, investments, and policies (FAO, 2018,
slide 1). I expected learners to not have a solid educational foundation in this topic area,
therefore results on the pre-test were expected to be low as compared to the post-test.
I expected that learners would increase their test scores in the post-test as compared to the
pre-test. My hypothesis was that after completing the training module, respondents would
Observed Outcomes
Respondents performed as expected regarding pre-test performance being lower than that
of the post-test. Results indicate that most respondents began the training module with little
related to what many of the college students have studied, some evidence of familiarity
with the topic can be seen in the scores (see table 1). As seen in the descriptive statistics Table 2,
the mean test-score for all respondents for the pre-test was 4.8 (or 48%) and the mean post-test
EVALUATIONO OF NUTRITION AND FOOD SECURITY TRAINING 7
score for all respondents was 7.3 (or 73%). As you can see from the data, there was an increase
in test scores from the pre-test to the post-test. Most learners experienced an increase in their
post-test score with one respondent scoring lower on the post-test and another scoring the same
on both the pre and post-tests. The median pre-test score was 4.5 and the median post-test score
was 7.5, which both are close to the mean of each indicating that there are no significant outliers
skewing the data. Sample variance was higher on the pre-test with a variance of 3.2 while the
post-test data had a sample variance of 1.12, indicating that responses had much less variance
module.
To further test the hypothesis a t-test was performed. The |t-stat| is 4.03 which is greater
than the t critical one-tail value, therefore there is statistical significance and the null hypothesis
is rejected.
Recommendations
Based on this evaluation, it is recommended that this training module be deemed suitable
for use in an academic setting to teach basic concepts of nutrition and food security. An
appropriate application would be to students majoring in health and human services, public
health, or public policy. Students studying in this area have some level of basic knowledge, or at
a minimum interest in this topic area, as revealed in the pre-test that was administered to
respondents. Data from this evaluation also supports that the training module was successful in
transferring knowledge of concepts presented and meeting course objectives (as evident in Table
2, Appendix C).
EVALUATIONO OF NUTRITION AND FOOD SECURITY TRAINING 8
Due to a small sample size of college students with similar educational goals, further
evaluation is recommended to determine whether this training module would be appropriate for
other populations.
This evaluation is based on one trial and has not been duplicated. A repeat evaluation is
necessary with a larger sample size in order to make further recommendations as to the
effectiveness of this training module. It is important to note, however, that this evaluation
supports the research hypothesis presented and was determined to be statistically significant. It is
expected that the result would be the same when the evaluation is repeated.
However, it is important to note that due to some very low scores on the pre-test (as seen
in Appendix C), the course instructor should take steps to further evaluate prior knowledge
necessary to be successful in meeting course objectives. The course content, as evident in the test
questions which were derived from course knowledge checkpoints (shown in Appendix A),
could be considered to be at a higher level than introductory knowledge. There are many
concepts and definitions presented in the short module which may be more difficult for learners
to master if not exposed to some of the content prior to taking the training. More evaluation is
Summary
Statistical evaluation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’
(FAO) training module Nutrition, Food Security, and Livelihoods: Basic Concepts was
performed to evaluate its use in an undergraduate academic course on food policy and nutrition.
A sample of 10 university college students majoring in health and human services, public policy,
questions derived from knowledge checkpoints in the training module prior to taking the training
online. Then a post-test was administered. Statistical evaluation of data collected in the pre and
post-tests indicates statistical significance for the test hypothesis – respondents taking the
training module will increase their scores as compared to the pretest thus showing the training to
be effective.
EVALUATIONO OF NUTRITION AND FOOD SECURITY TRAINING 10
Appendix A
a. True
b. False
3. Recent severe weight loss as a result in food deprivation or wasting refers to:
a. Acute malnutrition
b. Chronic malnutrition
c. Underweight
a. Age
b. Underweight
c. Presence of illness
food to meet dietary energy and nutrient requirements over a prolonged period of time is:
a. Chronic malnutrition
b. Acute malnutrition
a. Low hemoglobin
b. Fatigue
c. Night blindness
a. Iron
b. Vitamin A
c. Iodine
a. Food utilization
b. Food stability
c. Food access
a. Immediate
b. Underlying
c. Basic
a. Food utilization
b. Food availability
c. Food access
EVALUATIONO OF NUTRITION AND FOOD SECURITY TRAINING 12
Appendix B
Figure 1
Figure 2
EVALUATIONO OF NUTRITION AND FOOD SECURITY TRAINING 13
Appendix C
Pre-Test Post-Test
Table 1
Pre-Test Post-Test
References
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). (2018). E Learning Centre.