Food Skills Rating Checklist - Snapshot of Research Findings

1. Over ninety per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the use of the Checklist was a good idea and would help teachers, particularly new or less experienced teachers, to more accurately assess their students’ food skills.

2. Eighty-three per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they would use this Checklist and use it to report on, and to assess the development of their students’ food skills, often in conjunction with the videos as a training tool for their students. 
One respondent had this to say:

I would like to use the Food Skills Rating Checklists in conjunction with the videos as an entertaining and challenging tool for teaching and reinforcing food health and safety in Years 8 and 9.

What's next?
Based on the respondents' input, I am in the process of developing the Food Skills Rating Checklist further by:
1. creating a Food Skills Rating Checklist that includes the 'declarative' skills - the preliminary meal planning and decision making skills prior to shopping for ingredients.
2. an abridged 'portable' version that could be used on a digital tablet when teachers' are checking out their students' in class.
3. different Food Skills Rating Checklists that cover different skill sub-sets.
4. a food literacy version.

In the future...
Teacher respondents have already been using the three levels of videos as a training tool.
This was really very surprising since the videos were meant as a way of demonstrating the skills without using students (because of ethical concerns as they are minors).
I am looking at the possibility of making professional versions of videos which demonstrate different levels of food skills.
Let me know if you think if that's a good idea and would be a helpful resource to use in your classrooms or community cooking programs.

More updates soon (I am in the last stages of writing up my thesis which accounts for the long delay between posts!)
Sandra (hopefully soon to be 'Dr. Food'!!)