T8-03 Evaluation of a Reusable Learning Object for Educating Undergraduate Students about Good Manufacturing Practices

Tuesday, August 2, 2016: 2:00 PM
242 (America's Center - St. Louis)
Kinsey Porter, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Clint Stevenson, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Introduction: Undergraduates are the future workforce leaders, so it is critical to equip them with food safety competencies. Experts throughout industry believe the skill undergraduates lack the most is applying theoretical knowledge to real world problems. There is a projected 10% increase in food safety employment between the years 2010-2020. The development of asynchronous virtual reusable learning objects (RLOs) has potential to increase the efficiency of and/or complement existing methods for teaching undergraduates food safety concepts.

Purpose: This project evaluated the “The Plant Tour GMP Game,” a reusable learning object designed to teach students Good Manufacturing Practices in the context of a virtual food processing facility, and its effect on participant’s knowledge of GMPs, attitudes toward food safety, and normative, behavioral, and control beliefs before and after playing the game.

Methods: Students from 42 food science clubs around the United States were contacted to participate in this study.  The participants (n=44) were asked to take a pre-survey, play the game, and then take a post-survey. All questions asked in the pre-survey were also asked in the post-survey, and additional questions about the game design were added to the post-survey.

Results: Overall, “The Plant Tour GMP Game” is an effective teaching tool for undergraduate students. There were significant knowledge gains (P<0.05) for seven out of the ten knowledge questions. The number of participants who agreed or strongly agreed that they could identify GMPs in processing plants significantly increased (P<0.05) from 39% to 84%. The component of the game participants liked most was the videos (n=11).

Significance: Participants knew more about GMPs and felt more comfortable identifying GMPs after playing “The Plant Tour GMP Game.” This game could be a useful teaching tool to implement into undergraduate food safety courses by multiple instructors at different institutions.