Validity study for subjects of national examination for dietitian's license in Korea

Moon, Hyun Kyung; Lee, Sang Sun; Lim, Hyun Suk; Kim, Sun; Lee, Ae Rang

Abstract

National examination for dietitian's license should be reliable and valid to appreciate the ability to carry out the duty as dietitians in diverse area. Thus, it is necessary to investigate whether the present examination accomplishes the task of the evaluation of ability to perform the minimum duty for dietitians. To analyzes the situation, professor in the university, who educate future dietitians, and currently employed dietitians are surveyed for their opinions about the validity of national examination and future directions. Also dietitian's duty analysis, foreign national system for dietitians license, current educational system, and duty analysis in different areas are analyzed. With results of data analysis and the public hearing, subjects for dietitians examination are proposed. The result are following. About current national examination, the average score of survey was 3.14 for overall examination, 3.54 for the reflection of current education, 2.98 for the minimum ability for the dietitian, 2.47 for the problem solving ability, 2.58 for the ability to adapt the environment, 3.27 for knowledge of the study which is necessary for dietitian, 3.27 for the comprehension, 3.18 for the application, 2.74 for the analysis, 2.84 for synthesis and 2.79 for evaluation. Professors and dietitians show the difference which was statistically significant(p<0.05). Among current 9 subjects for examination, food sanitation and clinical dietary therapy had high scores for validity. In the duty analysis (year 2000), distribution for each subjects were 55.58% for nutrition, 33.15% for food service and hygiene, 6.57% for foundation and 3.83% for food and cookery. By the survey result of dietitian in the food service and clinical setting with the duty analysis, distributions for subject which has above 2.0 score for the validity , difficulty, importance, and frequency , were 59.14% for nutrition, 22.43% for food service and hygiene, 10.26% for foundation, 4.03% for food and cookery, and the other appeared with 3.15%. With the fact that items for duty are composed of attitude items 18%, knowledge items 53%, and technical items 29%, current national examination which mostly evaluate knowledge has only 53% degree of the evaluation for the ability to perform at the job. The proportion of opinion which approves the integration of subjects was 80.3% for professors and 78.7% for dietitians. It was visible as approval, the approval rate of the whole 79.6%. For integrations of subjects for the examination and in what kind of form it was done, the investigation of opinion results in 4 subjects areas of foundation, nutrition, food and cookery, and food service and hygienic field. It was the opinion for 31.4% of the respondent.. With these results, it referred to the national examination and set to the making items in 4 subjects areas of foundation, nutrition, food and cookery, and food service and hygienic field. In the future, it is recommended that, even if subjects for the national examination of dietitians are not changed, the number of questions in the examination, the proportion in the item pool, management of pools, should be adjusted by the 4 subject areas.