Document Type
Article
Journal/Book Title/Conference
International Journal for Innovation Education and Research
Volume
4
Issue
10
Publisher
The International Educative Research Foundation
Publication Date
10-31-2016
First Page
274
Last Page
283
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Abstract
Background: The functions, food sources, deficiency symptoms, and toxicity symptoms are important for dietetic professionals to know and apply to community, food service, and clinical settings. Purpose: To assess nutrition and dietetic students' knowledge of vitamins and minerals and identify students' strategies for learning and retaining vitamin and mineral information. Methodology: Students from three universities in the western United States were invited to participate in cross-sectional study. Participants completed a brief questionnaire that included multiple choice and short answer questions to assess their knowledge of a representative list of 8 vitamins and minerals. The questionnaire also included free-response questions about strategies for retention of vitamin/mineral information. Two researchers independently reviewed responses and identified themes. Results: Students' scores on multiple-choice vitamin/mineral questions suggested that they had difficulty remembering details regarding vitamins and minerals. Three themes were identified as common study strategies for learning vitamin and mineral content: repetition, mnemonic devices, and personal application. Conclusions: These findings suggest that further research assessing the increased use of repetition, mnemonic devices, and especially personal application in dietetics education curriculum are warranted.
Recommended Citation
Brown K, Ellis J, Ogan D, Wengreen H. Nutrition and Dietetic Students’ Vitamin and Mineral Knowledge and Concurrent Learning and Retention Strategies. International Journal for Innovation Education and Research. 2016; 4(10): 274-283. (1-6)
