| Stakeholders are interested in using technology to integrate nutrition education into the regular school curriculum as one strategy, among many, to combat the childhood obesity epidemic. The primary purposes of this study were to: (a) gain a better understanding of elementary teachers' perceptions concerning technology integration in nutrition education, and (b) identify factors influencing elementary teachers' self-efficacy for integrating technology into nutrition education. An online survey was used to collect demographic information, teacher perceptions of barriers to using technology to teach nutrition, teacher perceptions of barriers to teaching nutrition in general, teacher perceptions of supports for using technology to teach nutrition, and technology integration self efficacy for teaching nutrition. Frequencies, means, and standard deviations were calculated to gain a better understanding of teacher perceptions related to technology integration and nutrition education. Multiple regression analysis examined whether the variables (nutrition training and technology training) could predict elementary teachers' self-efficacy for utilizing technology to teach nutrition.;One hundred sixteen elementary educators from a six county region in West Virginia completed the survey. All educators taught at schools participating in Marshall University's Nutrition Education Program. Results indicate that "Unavailability of personal technology for students' home use to learn nutrition (iPad, laptop, fitness tracker)'' was the greatest challenge for teachers in using technology to teach nutrition. The two greatest challenges for teaching nutrition in general were "lack of appropriate resources" and "lack of instructional time.'' Results of the multiple regression revealed an overall significant regression (p = .011) with a small effect size. Multiple regression analysis with four forms of training revealed that the variables professional development, undergraduate course, graduate course, and technology certification explained 17.1% of the variance in technology integration self-efficacy for teaching nutrition. Technology certification was the only training variable found to be a significant unique contributor to the prediction model, explaining 7.4% of the variance in technology integration self-efficacy for teaching nutrition. Future training programs aiming to increase teachers' technology integration self-efficacy for teaching nutrition may benefit from using similar techniques as the Technology Integration Specialist Certification training. Training which emphasizes ways to integrate technology into nutrition education may be more salient than training focused simply on nutrition content or new technology applications. |
