Design, development, and formative evaluation of "Put Nutrition Into Practice," a multimedia nutrition education program for adults

The purpose of this study was to design, develop, and formatively evaluate a computer-based multimedia nutrition education program for adults based on the Dick and Carey model of instructional design. The 4 phases of the stud y included analysis, design, development, and evaluation. Seventy-two volun teers from the US Air Force, aged 18 to 50 years, participated in focus gro ups, an E-mail survey, or a dietitian survey to establish the program's ins tructional goal of applying the principles of the Food Guide Pyramid to dai ly food choices. Objectives, assessment instruments, content, examples, and practice questions with feedback were written in the design phase. Four mo dules of instruction-Familiarization with Food Groups, Serving Sizes, Modif ying a Menu, and Vitamins and Minerals-were programmed using Hyperstudio. E ighteen subjects aged 22 to 40 years, with at least a high school education and an average knowledge of nutrition volunteered to participate in 1 of 2 formative evaluation phases. All subjects completed a pretest, 2 posttests , 3 embedded tests, and an attitude questionnaire to ascertain program weak nesses. One module was deleted after phase 1 because the material lacked re levance to subjects. In phase 2, only 4 of 15 subjects could identify servi ng sizes in module 2 and only 6 of 15 subjects could do the same on posttes t 1. Back buttons and review screens were added to modules 2 and 3 to facil itate identification of serving sizes. We conclude that dietetics professio nals should use systematic models of instructional design, such as the Dick and Carey model, to design effective nutrition education programs for the public.