Abstract

This study is attempted to propose a quality evaluation method of the materials for nutrition education by applying readability test of printed materials for nutrition education. It is significantly important for the teaching class with nutrition education materials to consider students understanding level and education materials topics or choosing words in developed printed materials. This study performed an evaluation of the readability of text in teachers' guidebook, which is devised for elementary school students' education material about sugar, sodium and trans-fat and attempted to estimate the developing materials through analyzing difficulty level of the text. We utilized "The Teacher's Guidebook for Cooking Activity" that had been developed for elementary school by Ministry Education Science and Technology, as the readability evaluation standard. Compared with the average score of readability about "The Teacher's Guidebook for Cooking Activity", 72.94 +/- 6.85, "Sugar Guidebook" was 70.94 +/- 7.46, "Sodium Guidebook" was 68.76 +/- 14.50, and "Trans-fat Guidebook" was 58.87 +/- 10.79. Considering the subjects careers or ages, "The Teacher's Guidebook for Cooking Activity" has little deviation by the subjects careers or ages and was "intermediate" or "easy" level; however, "Sugar Guidebook", "Sodium Guidebook", "Trans-fat Guidebook" was "intermediate" or "difficult" level (p < 0.05). Readability score was especially low when the contents of some particular subjects were too professionalized or scientific terms were frequently used, and thes results were definitely seen in the "Sodium Guidebook" and "Trans-fat Guidebook". With Cloze test score, the readability evaluation will be using as an evaluation tool for the nutrition education materials.

• Keywords: nutrition education; education materials; readability; guidebook