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Browsing by Subject "kouluruokailun kehittäminen"

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  • Tuovinen, Emmi (2020)
    Purpose. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion of school lunch research and the discussion of developing school meals. The first aim of the study is to highlight children’s perspective and their experiences: what kind of things, actions and thoughts have an influence on children’s school meal experience. The second aim is to assess the use of the method of empathy-based stories as a method of nutrition research and in a child-centered study. The research questions of the study are the following: 1. How do children describe their school lunch experience in empathy-based stories they have written? 2. What kind of knowledge can be acquired by using the method of empathy-based stories in child-centered nutrition research? Methods. The study is a qualitative study based on a phenomenological approach which, as mentioned earlier, highlights children’s perspective. In this study, data were collected using the method of empathy-based stories. The study was a part of the Nordic ProMeal-study (Prospects for Promoting Health and Performance by School Meals in Nordic Countries). The target group was pupils who attended fourth grade in the Turku region in the academic year 2013–2014. The children were approximately 10 years old. Altogether 190 children wrote empathy-based stories. Half of the children (n = 95, analyzed n = 88) wrote a story describing a positive school meal experience and half (n = 95, analyzed n = 92) of them wrote a story of a negative school lunch experience. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. In addition, the information acquired by the method of empathy-based stories was examined from the perspective of nutrition research. Results and conclusions. As a result of the thematic analysis and the arranging of the data, the data consisted of three themes that described the foodscapes of school lunch from the children's point of view: food and eating, the school lunch situation and the social environment. The pleasantness of the food and the food itself had a significant effect on the school lunch experience in the children’s stories, and foods and dishes were also highlighted by name. In addition, the social environment of school lunch affected children’s experience and other children, friends, food service staff and teachers had impact on how children experienced the situation. The children also expressed their need for autonomy and their opportunity to influence the school lunch situation. The results of this study emphasize the need of taking into account the perspective of children when in developing school meal.
  • Ketolainen, Katja (2021)
    Previous studies show that secondary school students participate in school meals in varying degrees. School meals are an important part of students ’school day as they are present at school every day. School meals are part of food education on basic education. With school lunch, students gain energy for study and they can better focus on teaching and learning. However, in many cases, convenience store products attract students more than food served at school. Research objective: The aim of this qualitative case study is to find out what different factors emerge from the students' method of empathy in the texts in relation to school meals. The aim was to find the various reasons raised by the students, which are why they either stay at the school to eat school lunch or go to the convenience store instead. The research questions of the study are: 1. How do students justify staying in to eat school lunch? 2. In what ways do students justify not staying in school meals? Methods. 7th grade students from one unified school in southern Finland participated in the study (N = 127). Data collection was carried out using the empathy method. There were two frame stories, in one of which the student experienced a situation where he went to a convenience store instead of attending school lunch, and in the other he stayed at the school himself to eat despite going to the friends' shop. The material was analyzed by data-driven content analysis. Results and conclusions. The most common reasons for students to stay in school to eat were the food served, the cause-and-effect relationship related to school rules, the healthiness of food, and money. The reasons for going to the store were most often the food served, the friends, the products from the store and the content of the break. The main themes that emerged from the data were ‘Top-down rules and regulations’, ‘Youth-related issues’ and ‘Student-related issues’. In future the research result can be utilized in home economics education and in the development of school meals.