Date of Completion

2015

Document Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Nutrition and Food Sciences

Thesis Type

Honors College

First Advisor

Stephen Pintauro PhD

Keywords

Nutrition, Nutrition Education, Online Learning

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate knowledge retention among students who had taken an online Science of Energy Balance course over a one to two year follow up period.

Design: This study used a validated knowledge assessment from the online course The Science of Energy Balance. The assessment was delivered using LimeSurvey. The data were analyzed using MS Excel.

Setting: This study was conducted at the University of Vermont.

Participants: Twenty-three students who had previously taken the online Science of Energy Balance course were recruited as study participants. Ten students who had never taken a nutrition course were recruited as control participants.

Intervention(s): Participants were asked to complete an online validated knowledge assessment.

Main Outcome Measure(s): Original scores act as the covariant and the newest scores are the dependent variable. All scores were calculated out of a maximum score of 25.

Analysis: Two experimental group differences were analyzed using ANCOVA. T-tests were performed to analyze experimental group scores against control group scores as well as experimental group original scores against new scores.

Results: There was no significant difference between experimental group new scores and the control group new scores. There was no significant difference between the new scores of 1 year and 2 year post course. The pooled experimental group had a significant decrease from old score to new score.

Conclusions and Implications: Due to the small sample size and the unexpectedly high control group mean scores, we were not able to show a significant knowledge retention among students who had previously taken the online Science of Energy Balance.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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