“STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS COOKING IN

HOME ECONOMICS PERFORMANCES”

An Undergraduate Thesis Presented to the

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
San Pablo National High School
Poblacion, San Pablo

In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the

Grade 12 Senior High School Student
TVL - HOME ECONOMICS

By:

ADAM, JOMIL
BANDAHALA, AINON
MOSQUEDA, GERLYME
REDOBLE, ARJAY
SAMAL, MARIHA

January 2018
 ABSTRACT

TITLE: STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS COOKING AND HOME ECONOMICS

PERFORMANCES.

Authors: NAME OF RESEARCHER/S

Thesis Adviser: JUVY MAE SOJERO

Type of Document: THESIS

Type of Publication: UNPUBLISHED

Name of Institution: SAN PABLO NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

Address: POBLACION, SAN PABLO, ZAMBOANGA DEL SUR

 CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
Introduction
Vocational/ Technical Education is among the vital tools an individual can use to
be developed. It is a training for useful employment in trade, industries, agriculture,
business and home making etc. the emphasis on vocation. technical; education is to
prepare one for self reliance.
Within a society characterized by rapid social and technological change, the
educational processes of teaching and learning are extremely complex. In today's
transitional age, youth are involved with more advanced kinds of thinking, analysis, and
valuing than any other known group in history (Jacobson and Drier, 1973, p. 29). This is
an age of change that requires new and rapid adjustment. Change is a basic factor
determining the need for education for all people (Moffitt, 1953, pp. 6-7). He also
identified the impact of change on education as an ongoing challenge. Based on
speeches and writings for educational reform Somers and Little (1971, pp. 16-17)
identified four major aims of instructional change.
The field of Home Economics Education acts as an agent to help students cope
with change in everyday life. According to the American Home Economics Association
statement issued in New Directions II:
Home economics views the family as the major source of
nurturance, protection, and renewal for the individual. As
an educational force, the family significantly contributes to
the qualitative development of its individual members and
has the potential to prepare them for effective
productivity for self and society (Fitch, 1975, p. 26).
Home economics is a valuable addition to a high school curriculum because it
teaches students practical skills for daily living. In the process of transitioning
from childhood to adulthood, high school students need training in practices such
as nutrition, financial responsibility, home management and child development
so they can lead safe and productive lives. Most schools have changed the course
name from home economics to family and consumer sciences.
In addition to the development of valuable intrapersonal skills, the San Pablo
National High School, Technology Vocational Livelihood - Home Economics curriculum
also introduces the students to a wide variety of potential career paths. Students
become aware of all the career opportunities relating to each domain, as well as being
taught the skills associated with them. Those who find themselves intrigued by course
material may begin to consider an occupation in a related area. The home economics
discipline has led individuals to the fields of education, nutrition, social service, and
hospitality management, to name a few. It is hard to find a single subject taught in
schools today that incorporates as many topics of interest as home economics, helping
students to become more well-rounded individuals.
This paper was to determine the influential factors that affect the attitude
of the students towards Cooking and Home Economic Performance subjects
(Home economics) in San Pablo National High School. This was initiated as a
result of the student’s apathy to the study of vocational subjects (Home
economics) in secondary schools. In carrying out the research, the focus was to
identify the variables or interest, gender, socio-economic status of the parents as
it influences the students choice of the study of vocational/Technical subjects
(Home economics) were raised top guide the researcher designing the instrument
to be used for the study.
 THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK

Derived from the Latin word “aptitude” and the Italian “atto” (Latin=actus or
English= act) the word “attitude” was considered an abstract mental concept less than a
century ago. Previously, it was only considered as something physical and was used to
describe the pose people took for a portrait (Baker, 1992). From a psychological point of
view, attitude was first defined as a mental state of readiness to respond to something
based on experiences and influencing posterior behavior toward a specific object
(Allport, 1935).
In second language acquisition, (Gardner and Lambert, 1972) identified two main
roles of attitudes: 1. Instrumental attitudes are related with the desire to receive social-
status recognition or profitable benefits, and 2. Integrative attitudes are related to the
desire to be integrated into another language community. These roles describe the
position of students with respect to their language learning situation. Instrumental
attitudes are when the student is learning the language for personal interest, and
integrative attitudes are when the student is learning a language with the desire to be
integrated into a specific community that speaks that language. Students learning a
second language may report both instrumental and integrative attitudes in response to
instruments measuring these attitudes (Gardner, 1985).
As defined by (Shohamy and Donitsa-Schmidt, 1998), language reflects societal
realities such as social interactions, politics, and economics. In addition, language is one
of the most important means of supporting the interaction and communication
between people from the same or different language backgrounds. Language helps
bring communities together and, therefore, plays a critical role in society.
 SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM OF THE STUDY

Independent Variables Dependent Variables

COOKING
STUDENTS’ IN
ATTITUDES HOME
ECONOMICS
PERFORMANCES

Figure 1. The model shows Independent and Dependent Variables relationship.

 SCHEMATIC MODEL OF THE STUDY

Independent Variables Dependent Variables

COOKING
STUDENTS’ IN
ATTITUDES HOME
ECONOMICS
PERFORMANCES

Figure 1. The model shows Independent and Dependent Variables relationship.

This study, with its formulated title, “Students’ Attitude in Cooking and Home
Economics Performance” among the selected respondents in San Pablo National High
School has considered twin variables - the independent and dependent variables.
The independent variable of the study is the “Students’ Attitude” which is
expected to ascertain its link to the “Cooking and Home Economics Performance” of
the Students, the dependent variable.
With the information on the variables and meeting the essentials for the
research site, the researchers, then, proceeded to the field to gather the needed data
with the nod given by the research instructor.
 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This study aimed to determine the relationship between Students’ Attitude and
Cooking and Home Economics Performances among the selected respondents of San
Pablo National High School.
.
Specifically, this study sought answers to the following questions:

1. What are the factors that influence the Students’ Attitude towards Cooking and
Home Economics Performance?
2. What is the status of Students’ attitude towards Cooking and Home Economics
Performance?
3. Is there a significant relationship between Students’ Attitude and Student
Cooking and Home Economics Performances of the respondents?

RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

This study established the null hypothesis below which was tested at 0.05 level of
significance for Acceptance or Rejection.

Ho1: There is no significant relationship Students’ Attitude and Cooking and Home
Economics Performances of the respondents.
 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study shall give benefits to the following individuals.

Students. The findings of this study will inspire to pursue this study for better learning
and better academic performance

Teachers. The result of this study will encourage them to play as real second parents
advising and motivating their pupils to give more time to studying as educational
success is not found online but in the classroom.

Parents. This study will encourage them to give counselling, guidance to their children
by teaching them to manage their time well when engaged in some curricular activities.
They should stir their children to devote more time in their studies with some success
stories of professionals.

School Administrators. This study will give them information of the level of academic
performance the children may have in school and work collaboratively with teachers on
the improvement by addressing some problems affecting.

Future Researchers. This study can serve as a form of related literature and can even
inspire for possible replication.
 SCOPE AND LIMITATION

The dominant emphasis of this research study is on “Students’ Attitude towards

Cooking and Home Economics Performance”. This study was conducted in Municipality
of San Pablo, specifically, at the San Pablo National High School one of the mostly-
populated secondary school in the municipality. This study used a specific method to
give a value to the research questions and inquiry of this study.

In order to find the basis of all factors on Students’ Attitude towards Cooking and
Home Economics Performance among the respondents, the researchers gather the
needed data and had to use the following instruments: A self-constructed
questionnaire or evaluation form which was used to determine the influential factors
and its significant relationship between Students’ Attitude and Cooking and Home
Economics of the respondents in San Pablo National High School.
 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Attitudes. Refers to the respondent’s opinion or general feeling to the research study
conducted in San Pablo National High School inside school campus.

Cooking. Refers to the art, technology and craft of preparing food for consumption with
or without the use of heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across
the world, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric stoves, to baking in
various types of ovens, reflecting unique environmental, economic and cultural
traditions and trends.

Home Economics. Refers to the respondent’ s developed understanding of the factors

that influence the well-being of individuals and families within the home and
community and of the actions people take to enhance and sustain those environments.

Academic Performance. The outcome of education – the extent to which students

achieved their educational goals manifested through General Weighted Average of all
the curricular subjects.

San Pablo National High School. The place of the study – one of the public secondary
schools of District of San Pablo.

Respondents. This refers to the Grade Dove students of San Pablo National High School.

School Facilities. A type of building that is use by the respondents for their academic
and non-academic endeavour for a smoothly run teaching and learning process.

Learning Process. Significant changes in behaviour of the respondents through active

participation and their critical thinking capability.
 CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND RELATED STUDIES

This chapter presents the review of related literature and related studies which
the researchers believe to have relevance on the study. This includes data from different
resources such as the internet, some theses output and other materials which truly
helped in shedding light to the present inquiry.
It provides the investigation of a background regarding the relationship between
Students’ Attitude and Cooking and Home Economics of the selected respondents in San
Pablo National High School.

Introduction
Food choices, cooking behaviours and resulting nutritional health are influenced
by a number of complex and inter-related individual, collective and policy-related
determinants. There is a growing body of research supporting the relationship between
food preparation and cooking skills and food choices of children and adolescents within
the family context.

Paralleling the nutrition transition which has been occurring over the past
several decades in the developed world, and more recently in the developing world, a
transition or change in cooking and food preparation skills has been hypothesized and
observed. The corresponding transition in cooking and food preparation skills involves
the increased use of pre-prepared, packaged and convenience foods, which require
fewer and/or different skills than what is often referred to as traditional or 'from
scratch' cooking.

(Crawford et al., 2007) Attitudes about cooking and cooking-related behaviors

show a correlation to diet quality. Women who dislike cooking are less likely to eat two
or more servings of vegetables daily (Crawford et al., 2007). Women who report they
enjoy grocery shopping are more likely to consume fruits and vegetables daily.
 Cooking enjoyment was the most important predictor for cooking skills in the
European adult population (Hartmann, Dohle, & Siegrist, 2013). College women report
that one barrier to preparing basic foods is that they had no interest in learning how to
cook (Soliah et al., 2006).
(Jones, Walter, Soliah, & Phifer, 2014; Soliah, Walter, & Antosh, 2006) Cooking
frequency is related to healthy eating behaviors. Home-cooked meals often include
smaller portions and fewer calories, less fat, salt, and sugar, and more fiber, calcium,
folate, iron, and vitamins B6, B12, and C than meals eaten outside of the home.
(Larson, Perry, et al., 2006) One study showed that adolescents’ frequency of
preparing food is positively correlated with lower intakes of carbonated beverages and
fried foods and with higher intakes of fruits, vegetables, fiber, folate, calcium, and
vitamin A Young adults who reported frequent food preparation were more likely to
meet dietary objectives for fat, calcium, fruit, vegetables, and whole grain consumption.
(Hersch, Perdue, Ambroz, & Boucher, 2014) Cooking programs can positively
influence children’s food-related preferences, attitudes, and behaviours. The Healthy
Home Offerings via the Mealtime Environment (HOME) obesity prevention program
aimed to increase the quality of foods in the home and at family meals through five 90-
minute sessions consisting of nutrition education, parent discussion groups, and hands-
on meal preparation with children and adults.
(Pollan, 2009) The first step is to acknowledge the emotional baggage we each
may carry when we come to the kitchen, either from early experiences (or lack thereof)
or past experiences when cooking did not turn out as we had planned. This is not to say
summoning up joy for cooking is easy (Pollan 2009) and that we can suddenly get over
feelings of indifference or failure. However, just identifying any negative feelings related
to cooking and reflecting on their source can provide a beginning basis for moving
forward and starting with a fresh attitude. All educators can benefit from this reflection.
(Hachey 2009) Focus on play as a way to introduce cooking concepts and
methods. Sometimes, playing with your food is OK. Try different themes and explore
textures, shape, and color options to make food interesting. Play offers rich occasions
for children to be motivated to help prepare food. Intrinsically motivated children often
exhibit persistence and creativity in problem solving during play.
(Short, 2003) Cooking proficiency requires knowledge (about food science);
planning (organization of meals, making grocery lists, planning meals on a budget);
conceptualizing food (creative use of ingredients, adjusting recipes); mechanical
techniques (knife skills, sautéing, kneading); and food perception Cooking attitudes
involve perceived time, convenience, and difficulty associated with cooking as well as
overall enjoyment of cooking.
(Condrasky et al., 2011) Cooking attitudes, behaviors, and skills can be assessed
via questionnaire. Condrasky and colleagues used a 5-point Likert scale to assess
attitudes and self-efficacy towards cooking (2011). Subjects rated how they felt about
cooking by reading statements such as “Cooking is frustrating” and “I do not like to cook
because it takes too much time” and selecting between strongly disagree, disagree,
neutral, agree, or strongly agree (Condrasky et al., 2011). In the same study, researchers
measured confidence in culinary skills by presenting a list of cooking techniques and
asking participants to indicate the extent to which they felt confident (not at all
confident, not very confident, neutral, confident, or extremely confident) about
performing each of the activities.
(Van der Horst et al., 2010) To measure cooking skill, one study had participants
indicate how much statements such as “I can cook complicated multi-course meals” and
“I can prepare a lot of meals even without a recipe” applied to them on a scale of 1-6
(van der Horst et al., 2010), however, this level of cooking acumen is not necessarily
required for healthy food preparation. Hartman and colleagues developed a cooking
skill scale to measure cooking skills in relation to dietary intake in European adults
(2013).
(Hartmann et al., 2013) The paper-and-pencil questionnaire was validated using
a test-retest analysis. They found that cooking skills correlated positively with vegetable
consumption and negatively with convenience food consumption. The Project EAT-II
survey includes questions about perceived cooking skill, asking participants to rate their
cooking skills as very adequate, adequate, inadequate, or very inadequate.
(Pilling, Brannon, Roberts, Shanklin, and Howells, 2008) The responsibility of
having positive attitude towards food safety does not only lie on the shoulder of the
management team. Employees, students and even any food handlers should take their
own initiatives to enhance their knowledge in the matter and profiling themselves to be
more positive. (Pilling, Brannon, Roberts, Shanklin, and Howells, 2008) found that
employees perceive many barriers to implementing food safety programs. Employees
noted that lack of time, training, and resources, along with employee attitude,
availability of hand sinks, and inconveniently located resources were barriers to hand
washing within a foodservice operation (Pilling et al., 2008).
(Mortlock, Peters, & Griffith, 1999) It is undeniable that not all of teaching
institutions in the developing countries which involved in the culinary field is equipped
with the proper and more manageable facilities. It is well-known that improving
knowledge does not necessarily lead to changes in attitude or behaviour (Ajzen &
Fishbein, 1980). However, the gap between knowledge and behaviour is regarded as an
affective dimension (Galli, 1978). Various studies have shown that the efficacy of
training in terms of changing behaviour and attitudes to food safety is questionable
(Engler-Stringer, 2010) When people cook, they do so in a different
manner than their ancestors. There has been a movement from use of almost entirely
raw, whole ingredients, to use of highly processed and pre-prepared foods.

(Engler-Stringer, 2010b) The decline in cooking from scratch may be due to lack
of perceived skill. Eighteen percent of women and 23% of men ages 18-24 report having
inadequate cooking skills. Australian adults believe that eating healthy requires
considerable cooking skills and that lack of these skills is a barrier to weight-control.

(Crawford, Ball, Mishra, Salmon, & Timperio, 2007) Research shows a

correlation between cooking and diet quality in children, but it is not all positive. One
study showed that children who regularly participated in preparing meals consumed
significantly more salad, but also ate more total calories (van der Horst, Ferrage, & Rytz,
2014). Among adults, activities related to cooking are positively associated with diet
quality (Thorpe et al., 2014). Cooking-related behaviors such as organization and
planning are related to healthier intakes of fruits and vegetables among Australian
women.

(Larson, et al., 2006, Niemeier et al., 2006) Food prepared outside the home,
from fast-food restaurants in particular, is associated with lower intake of key nutrients,
fruits and vegetables, and has been found to negatively influence overall health by
increasing the risk of overweight and obesity.

(Larson et al, 2006) found increased food preparation by young adults was
associated with an increased likelihood of meeting recommended levels of calcium,
fruit, vegetables and whole grains. Of those who reported high food preparation
frequency, 31% consumed five servings of fruits or vegetables daily, compared to only
3% who reported very low food preparation.

(CNPP, 2010) Understanding the factors that influence cooking behavior in

young adults, and the attitudes young adults have towards cooking is an important first
step towards identifying how best to create interventions designed to address the issues
laid out by the CNPP. The CNPP also recognizes that ultimately it is up to individuals to
choose what and how much they will consume Identifying barriers young adults
encounter towards making healthful choices is another component necessary for the
creation of effective interventions.