Purpose: The purpose of this study was to build and validate an instrument to measure food safety attitudes and knowledge of employees before and after a food safety training intervention.
Methods: Twenty operators at a dairy processing facility were surveyed immediately before and after receiving allergen control training. Food safety culture evaluation questions were constructed to measure organizational characteristics; employee attitudes, knowledge, perceptions, and risk awareness; and group characteristics. Training evaluation questions were constructed using the Integrated Behavior Model. The analysis tool also involved collecting supervisor audit and regulatory audit data to measure food safety performance.
Results: Of the twenty responses collected, sixteen were usable for analysis. Subject matter experts and members of industry were referenced to ensure content validity. The training intervention had no effect on participants’ attitudes, perceived norm, or personal agency. Pretraining responses were compared to pre- and posttraining knowledge scores and a correlation (53 to 72%) was found between posttraining knowledge scores and scores for injunctive-norm. A linear regression showed a positive correlation between injunctive norm and posttraining knowledge scores (P<0.05).
Significance: This data hints that training may be more effectively implemented if employees feel that certain food safety behaviors are expected by their peers, managers, and others. The data from this study warrants more research to study the relationship between training and food safety attitudes and perceptions.