Interdisciplinary nutritional education: interventional study on interdisciplinary learning in home economics and English
- 15.06.2015
- English Articles
- Ute Bender
Peer-reviewed | Manuscript received: November 03, 2014 | Revision accepted: March 10, 2015
In schools at secondary level 1 in German-speaking Switzerland, most nutritional education is subsumed into home economics. As part of the LEENA research project (Learning in Nutritional Education and Education with a New Task Culture [Lernen in Ernährungsbildung und Englisch durch neue Aufgabenkultur]), it was investigated to what extent nutritional education could be enhanced within home economics and English.
Introduction and background to the study
Enhancing expertise by coordinating different subjects
The purpose of nutritional education is to help adolescents to develop their own eating and meal habits in an independent, pleasurable and responsible manner [1]. This is in accordance with the intention of current reforms in the teaching plans in the German-speaking area, as these are aimed at enhancing expertise in everyday life. Since teaching in lower secondary education is traditionally structured along subject lines the question arises whether these aims would not be better served by implementing a higher cooperation between subjects to help learners link knowledge from different domains to solve everyday life problems [2]. Although there is a long tradition of interdisciplinary school teaching, there have hardly been any empirical studies of its effects on students‘ performance [3]. In this context, the LEENA project investigated the effects of a teachingbased link between home economics and English on the quality of nutritional education.
Summary
As part of the LEENA research project (Learning in Nutritional Education and Education with a New Task Culture [Lernen in Ernährungsbildung und Englisch durch neue Aufgabenkultur]), a quasi-experimental study in 35 classes has been carried out, with a pre-/post- design and control groups. This was intended to investigate the extent to which cooperation between the subjects of home economics and English supported selected aspects of nutritional education in secondary school level 1. The subject of the teaching was the “healthy breakfast”. Analysis of variance was performed in comparison to the control groups; the test group exhibited significantly greater increases in nutritional knowledge and better use of coordinated knowledge in nutrition and English. On the other hand, it was also found that the level of education of the classes influenced the results of the connection test. Once this was incorporated into the calculations, the significance of the intervention was no longer evident.
Keywords: nutritional education, interdisciplinary learning, home economics, English, quasi-experimental study
