The purpose of this project is to develop and assess a computer multimedia autotutorial module designed to assist undergraduate students in the development of critical thinking skills so that they can better interpret or evaluate nutrition research and information.
Nutrition is a field full of conflicting information.
This is not only confusing to the nutrition professional, but also to the general public. The public wonders why nutritionists' recommendations keep changing, and lose motivation for making healthy dietary modifications. Because changing recommendations are inherent in health sciences as new information is discovered through research, conflicting messages to the public must be kept to a minimum. Although ideally a nutritionist will critically evaluate nutrition research studies, interpretation by the novice is often influenced by personal experience, bias, and emotion. By training nutrition students to critically evaluate nutrition information, flawed interpretations which result in public misinformation will be minimized.