A Quantitative Assessment of the Research Chefs Association Core Competencies for the Practicing Culinologist

ABSTRACT: Professional organizations have linked core competency to professional success and competitive strategy. The Research Chefs Assn. (RCA) recently released 43 core competencies for practicing culinologists. Culinology^® is a profession that links skills of culinary arts and food science and technology in the development of food products. An online survey was created asking RCA members from all 6 membership categories (Associate, Affiliate, Chef, Culinology, Food Science and Technology (FS&T), and Student) to rate their knowledge level based on a 7‐point scale and agreement to importance in job performance based on a 5‐point Likert scale for each competency statement. RCA participant's (N = 192) survey results were analyzed using SPSS for Windows version 13.0 at a significance level of P < 0.05. Statistical survey validation grouped all 43 competency statements into 8 factors (groupings) according to level of competency proficiency (opposed to the 7 groups each competency was originally designated by the RC A) and into 9 factors according to job success. Results suggest that Chef Members know “Culinary Arts” best and FS&T members know “Food Science” best. A gap analysis determined what competency factors were low in knowledge level yet important to job success for each membership category. Chef members have a lower level of knowledge in “Product Development,”“Food Science,” and “Quality Assurance” factors; however, the factors are important to job success. FS&T members have a lower level of knowledge in “Nutrition” yet identified the factor important to job success. An opportunity exists to improve educational efforts for specific membership categories.     

Listening differently: A pedagogy for expanded listening

Mainstream education promotes a narrow conception of listening, centred on the reception and comprehension of human meanings. As such, it is ill‐equipped to hear how sound propagates affects, generates atmospheres, shapes environments and enacts power. Yet these aspects of sound are vital to how education functions. We therefore argue that there is a need to expand listening in education, and suggest that listening walks could provide a pedagogy for this purpose. Using interview data in which early years practitioners reflect on a listening walk, we show how the method can: (i) produce heightened multisensory experiences of spaces; (ii) generate forms of difficulty and discomfort that produce new learning; and (iii) influence practice, particularly practitioners’ ability to empathise with young children. Listening walks function by disrupting everyday sensory habits, provoking listeners to listen anew to their own listening, in an open‐ended way that is not tied to predetermined learning outcomes. The method therefore has wider pedagogic potential for rethinking education and childhood beyond rationality, representation and meaning.     

Leveling the playing field in ICT design: Transcending knowledge roles by balancing division and privileging of knowledges

Abstract

This article develops a conceptual model of users’ and designers’ knowledge roles in the information and communication technology design process. The “ideal” center at the intersection of the axes for division of knowledge work and privileging of knowledges represents a balanced distribution of knowledge work between users and designers and an avoidance of privileging either group over the other. The article then applies this model to analyses of the design process for six video games wherein the knowledges of Indigenous peoples in North America were mobilized. It concludes by discussing implications for research and design practice, particularly for broadening the participation and self-articulation of marginalized groups.     

Emotion discourse, social cognition, and social skills in children with and without developmental delays

This study examined parent-child emotion discourse, children's independent social information processing, and social skills outcomes in 146 families of 8-year-olds with and without developmental delays. Children's emergent social-cognitive understanding (internal state understanding, perspective taking, and causal reasoning and problem solving) was coded in the context of parent-child conversations about emotion, and children were interviewed separately to assess social problem solving. Mothers, fathers, and teachers reported on children's social skills. The proposed strengths-based model partially accounted for social skills differences between typically developing children and children with delays. A multigroup analysis of the model linking emotion discourse to social skills through children's prosocial problem solving suggested that processes operated similarly for the two groups. Implications for ecologically focused prevention and intervention are discussed.     

Maternal employment, work schedules, and children's body mass index

Previous work has shown that mothers' employment is associated with increases in children's body mass index (BMI), a measure of weight for height. Nonstandard work (working evenings or nights, weekends, or an irregular shift) may also be associated with children's BMI. This article examines the association between maternal work and children's BMI and considers the influence of mothers' nonstandard work schedules. Using data from school-age children (approximately 8 to 12 years) in the NICHD's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 990), this study found that an increase in the total time a mother is employed is associated with an increase in her child's BMI; additionally, the association between maternal employment and children's weight is much stronger at 6th grade relative to younger ages. There was no evidence that maternal or home characteristics or children's time use mediated these associations, nor was there any evidence that nonstandard work was associated with children's BMI. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

Adolescents' development of skills for agency in youth programs: learning to think strategically

This research examines how youth in arts and leadership programs develop skills for organizing actions over time to achieve goals. Ethnically diverse youth (ages 13-21) in 11 high-quality urban and rural programs were interviewed as they carried out projects. Qualitative analyses of 712 interviews with 108 youth yielded preliminary grounded theory about youth's development of strategic thinking, defined as use of dynamic systems reasoning to anticipate real-word scenarios and plan work. Strategic thinking appeared to develop through youth's creative engagement with tactical challenges in the work and feedback from the work's outcomes. Program advisors supported this development by giving youth control and by providing nondirective assistance when needed.     

The Pell and the Poor: A Regression-Discontinuity Analysis of On-Time College Enrollment

In this study, I capitalize on a natural experiment to examine the effect of federal Pell Grant eligibility on college enrollment for students who graduated from high school in spring 2004 and who completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 are used to array students on the continuous Expected Family Contribution (EFC) variable, attained from the FAFSA, and divide them into two categories—those with an EFC at or below the federally designated amount for Pell eligibility, and those above. This regression-discontinuity approach allows me to measure whether students who vary regarding their Pell Grant eligibility, but who have essentially identical family incomes, differ in their college enrollment rates. I find no effect. While confirming prior studies examining the impact of the Pell Grant on college enrollment for traditional students, this finding remains inconsistent with findings on other need-based grants. This result suggests that the minimum Pell Grant amount, currently less than 10% of an average college’s tuition and fees, may be insufficient.