Assessing and Addressing Safe Food Handling Knowledge,Attitudes, and Behaviors of College Undergraduates

ABSTRACT: The authors determined the food safety knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of undergraduates (n = 1122) on an urban college campus using a previously piloted survey tool. Data obtained found that while students reported high levels of confidence in their ability to engage in safe food handling practices, their knowledge and self‐reported behaviors indicated that they were not actually engaging in safe food handling practices. Students were particularly lacking knowledge with respect to proper temperatures for cooking, reheating, and refrigerating foods. The data were further analyzed to determine differences in food safety knowledge and practices between populations of different demographics within the students. Differences were found between male and female students, Caucasian and Asian students, and students who had worked in food service compared with those who had not. A final aspect of this study evaluated the effectiveness of a social marketing campaign to increase awareness of safe food handling practices among college undergraduates. A cross‐sectional, quasi‐experimental, pre‐ and posttest design was used. Following the baseline knowledge survey described previously, a social marketing campaign developed for young adults was implemented on the campus over a 4‐wk period that included promotional events and incentives. Postcampaign survey results indicated increases in food safety knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors, particularly with respect to appropriate temperatures for cooking and refrigeration and found that e‐mails and posters may be effective ways to communicate food safety messages to this population.     

How 15 hundred is like 15 cherries: effect of progressive alignment on representational changes in numerical cognition

How does understanding the decimal system change with age and experience? Second, third, sixth graders, and adults (Experiment 1: N = 96, mean ages = 7.9, 9.23, 12.06, and 19.96 years, respectively) made number line estimates across 3 scales (0–1,000, 0–10,000, and 0–100,000). Generation of linear estimates increased with age but decreased with numerical scale. Therefore, the authors hypothesized highlighting commonalities between small and large scales (15:100::1500:10000) might prompt children to generalize their linear representations to ever‐larger scales. Experiment 2 assigned second graders (N = 46, mean age = 7.78 years) to experimental groups differing in how commonalities of small and large numerical scales were highlighted. Only children experiencing progressive alignment of small and large scales successfully produced linear estimates on increasingly larger scales, suggesting analogies between numeric scales elicit broad generalization of linear representations.     

An Investigation of the Support Process: Decision,Enactment, and Outcome

This study examines factors influencing the effectiveness and relational consequences of emotional support through three phases: decision, enactment, and outcome. Participants (N = 428) completed a questionnaire asking them to identify a time they faced a traumatic event, to identify whom they turned to for support, to complete measures of trust and solidarity before and after the support episode, and to complete measures assessing the efficacy of the support exchange. Analyses revealed the type of event influenced selection of a support target, severity of event was correlated with pre-episode trust and solidarity levels, and females provided more effective support than did males. Trust and solidarity levels after the support episode were predicted, in part, by the efficacy of the support episode. Implications of the phasic model for future research on support following a traumatic event are discussed.     

Strengthening discipline in state schools: constructions of discipline in a public policy moment

This article uses critical discourse analysis to interrogate government documents associated with the passing of the Education (Strengthening Discipline in State Schools) Act 2013 in Queensland, Australia. It uses these documents to demonstrate the way in which the discourse of discipline has been constructed in order to legitimate the removal of legislative safeguards intended to curtail the disciplinary power of school officials.     

Prescribed active learning increases performance in introductory biology

We tested five course designs that varied in the structure of daily and weekly active-learning exercises in an attempt to lower the traditionally high failure rate in a gateway course for biology majors. Students were given daily multiple-choice questions and answered with electronic response devices (clickers) or cards. Card responses were ungraded; clicker responses were graded for right/wrong answers or participation. Weekly practice exams were done as an individual or as part of a study group. Compared with previous versions of the same course taught by the same instructor, students in the new course designs performed better: There were significantly lower failure rates, higher total exam points, and higher scores on an identical midterm. Attendance was higher in the clicker versus cards section; attendance and course grade were positively correlated. Students did better on clicker questions if they were graded for right/wrong answers versus participation, although this improvement did not translate into increased scores on exams. In this course, achievement increases when students get regular practice via prescribed (graded) active-learning exercises.     

Gender differences in confidence during number-line estimation

Metacognition and Learning - Prior research has found gender differences in spatial tasks in which men perform better, and are more confident, than women. Do gender differences also occur in...     

Enhancing diversity in science: is teaching science process skills the answer?

The Biology Fellows Program at the University of Washington aims to enhance diversity in science by helping students succeed in the rigorous introductory biology classes and motivating them to engage in undergraduate research. The composite Scholastic Achievement Test scores and high school grade point averages of the Biology Fellows are comparable to those of students who are not in the program; however, they earn, on average, higher grades in introductory biology classes than non-Biology Fellows. Underrepresented minorities and disadvantaged students in the program also earn higher grades in the introductory biology classes than do their non-Biology Fellows counterparts. Analysis of the performance of Biology Fellows shows that the program assists students who are not proficient in certain science process skills and that students who lack these skills are at risk for failing introductory biology. This evaluation provides insight for designing programs that aim to enhance the performance of beginning students of biology, particularly for underrepresented minorities, who want to obtain a life science degree.     

English as a foreign language,globalisation and conceptual questioning

This text discusses the locus of English in globalisation discourses. Assuming that languages constitute discursive formations informing ways of knowing, discourses of English as a global language (EGL) are positioned in relation to teaching English as a foreign language in the glocal scene. We draw on post‐colonial theories and critical education, treating languages as social practices and conceiving of teaching EGL as a privileged context for discursive agency, especially when discourses of global English are critically engaged with through dialogue and conceptual questioning. We present a post‐method suggestion of procedures to promote conceptual questioning through construction of open spaces.     

The Logarithmic-To-Linear Shift: One Learning Sequence, Many Tasks, Many Time Scales

The relation between short-term and long-term change (also known as learning and development) has been of great interest throughout the history of developmental psychology. Werner and Vygotsky believed that the two involved basically similar progressions of qualitatively distinct knowledge states; behaviorists such as Kendler and Kendler believed that the two involved similar patterns of continuous growth; Piaget believed that the two were basically dissimilar, with only development involving qualitative reorganization of existing knowledge and acquisition of new cognitive structures. This article examines the viability of these three accounts in accounting for the development of numerical representations. A review of this literature indicated that Werner's and Vygotsky's position (and that of modern dynamic systems and information processing theorists) provided the most accurate account of the data. In particular, both changes over periods of years and changes within a single experimental session indicated that children progress from logarithmic to linear representations of numerical magnitudes, at times showing abrupt changes across a large range of numbers. The pattern occurs with representations of whole number magnitudes at different ages for different numerical ranges; thus, children progress from logarithmic to linear representations of the 0–100 range between kindergarten and second grade, whereas they make the same transition in the 0–1,000 range between second and fourth grade. Similar changes are seen on tasks involving fractions; these changes yield the paradoxical finding that young children at times estimate fractional magnitudes more accurately than adults do. Several different educational interventions based on this analysis of changes in numerical representations have yielded promising results.