Abstract
Objective: We designed a questionnaire about meal preparation competency with four subscales (18 items total) for female university students. The purpose of this study was to assess the validity of the questionnaire for measuring cooking skills.
Methods: The participants were 59 female university students majoring in nutrition and 52 female university students majoring in other fields.
We administered the questionnaire about meal preparation and a test of cooking skill. The participants of each major type were divided into three groups according to their self-rated meal preparation competency as assessed by the questionnaire. We then compared the between-group differences in performance on the cooking skill test using an analysis of covariance.
Results: A significant association was found between the cooking skill score and meal preparation competency score (p=0.004) among the female university students majoring in nutrition. The group that reported having high competency in meal preparation had significantly higher cooking skills than the group that reported having low competency. There were few significant associations for the female university students majoring in other fields.
Conclusions: The high correlation between the participants' meal preparation competency scores on the questionnaire and their cooking skills showed the validity of the questionnaire for female university students with an existing interest in nutrition and food.
