The Knowledge Attitude and Behavioral Intention of Child Weight Control Motivation among Elementary School Teacher in Taipei County

• Main Authors: Hsiu-Yuan Tseng, 曾秀媛
• Other Authors: Yann-Fen Chao
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/10383934326347549672

碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 社區護理研究所 === 94 === Abstract The changes in the lifestyles and eating habits of the people in Taiwan have resulted in the problem of increasing overweight and obesity, which is closely related to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and some malignancies even though it does not cause immediate threat to life. Due to the fact that children spend most of their day at school and elementary school children are normally obedient to their teachers, the teacher is a key communication factor that should not be neglected in promoting children’s health. Based on a survey of the elementary school teachers’ knowledge, attitude, subjective norm, self-efficacy, and teaching behavioral intention in school children’s weight control, this study aims to evaluate the teachers’ accuracy in promoting weight-control measures and to find out feasible strategies of promoting weight control at school. 1,020 structured questionnaires were distributed to teachers from 212 public and private elementary schools, and a total of 743 (72.8%) were collected. The data were entered into SPSS 12.0 for descriptive analysis, t-test, One-Way ANOVA, Pearson correlation and Liner regression analysis based on the research questions and structure. The results of this study show that the average score of the teachers’ knowledge of weight control is 19.0, with an accuracy of 95%, indicating that the teachers have a good knowledge of weight control. Their average attitude score is 44.0±4.6, with an accuracy of 73.3%, and the average score for each question item is 2.4±0.6~3.3±0.4, suggesting that they have a fairly positive attitude toward the promotion of school children’s weight control. In terms of the normative belief, the teachers’ score for subjective norm in health care professionals is the highest (3.1±0.5), and the others, in order, are children’s parents (3.1±0.6), school (3.0±0.5), relatives and friends (2.7±0.5), and colleagues (2.7±0.5). As for the compliance belief, the teachers’ score for compliance with the school is the highest (3.1±0.4), and the others, in order, are children’s parents (3.1±0.4), health care professionals (3.0±0.4), relatives and friends (2.9±0.4), and colleagues (2.9±0.4), indicating that the teachers show the highest compliance with the school and the lowest with their relatives, friends and colleagues. The teachers’ average self-efficacy score is 43.2±5.6, with an accuracy of 72%, and the average score for each question item is 2.6±0.6~3.1±0.6, showing that the teachers’ self-efficacy for weight control is rather low. Their average score for teaching behavioral intention is 15.1±1.5, with an accuracy of 75.5%, and the average score for each question item is 2.9±0.4~3.1±0.3, suggesting that they have a rather high teaching behavioral intention. The teachers’ attitude, self-efficacy and teaching behavioral intention for promoting weight control are positively correlated with each other, meaning that the more positive their attitude for weight control is, the higher their self-confidence in promoting weight control and the higher their behavioral intention will be. When four predictor variables, male, previous training experience, attitude score, and self-efficacy score, were used to predict teaching behavior, 23.8% of the total variance were explained. In terms of the explanation power of the individual variable, the “attitude” dimension shows the best prediction power (15.5%), and the second best is the “self-efficacy” dimension (4.9%). The combined prediction power of these two variables is 20.4%. This prediction model suggests that teaching behavioral intention will be positively increased when attitude and self-efficacy are positively increased, and previous training experience and male gender will also result in increased teaching behavioral intention as well. Based on the above results, this study proposes that schools should work with health care professionals to arrange training seminars to help promote teachers’ positive attitude and self-confidence in weight control and further implement weight control teaching activities.