We performed an educational evaluation of dietician course students. To do this, we conducted a dietary survey using food models with integrated circuit tags to examine whether the students could learn to select a balanced meal.
The subjects were 65 women at a junior college who were studying to be dieticians （study group） and 65 female students who were not studying the dietician course （non-study group）. Subjects participated in a dietary survey in May-June 2013 and again in September-October 2014. The 2013 and 2014 dietary surveys each had two steps. In the first trial, we assessed the subjects' ability to select a meal. In the second trial, we assessed the subjects' ability to modify their meal selection to make it more balanced. The balance of the meal in each dietary survey was rated from 1 to 5. Scores obtained in the dietary surveys in each period in each group were analyzed by using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test or Mann-Whitney test.
Comparison of scores between the 2013 and 2104 surveys revealed that, in the study group, the first trial score in the 2014 survey was significantly higher than the first trial score in the 2013 survey （p ＜ 0.05）. However, in the study group there were no significant differences between the second trial score in 2013 and that in 2014. Comparison of the scores in the study and non-study groups revealed that, in 2014, the first trial score of the study group was significantly higher than that of the non-study group （p ＜ 0.01）. There were no significant differences in the second trial scores in 2014 between the study and non-study groups.
These results suggested that, after dietitian education, students learned to select a balanced meal. However, their ability to see meals comprehensively and modify them appeared insufficient. The students were unable to understand that a food or dish used to modify a nutrient excess or deficiency could cause an excess or deficiency of other nutrients.
