Comparison of Human Attributes for School and Hospital Dietitians : by Importance and Frequency Scale

Song, Eun Seung; kim, Myung So

Abstract

Job analysis was done by the method of interview and survey to find out the human attributes needed for dietitans' job performance. The knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics including personality were major items in the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to 340 schools and hospital dietitians. Among these, 201 were compeletely filled out, returned and statistically analyzed according to the frequency scale and importance scale respectively. The results were as follows : 1) The age, education, job experience and monthly pay of hospital dietitians were higher than those of school dietitians. This was partly due to the reflection of short chronicle of school foodservice. 2) The most important human attributes for rwo groups were commonly shown as sincere and faithful personality, good human relationship and responsibility for business outcome. 3) Computer skill and menuplanning ability were human attributes of the most frequently used by school dietitians, whereas knowledge of diet therapy, clinical nutrition, and pathology of disease were frequently used by hospital dietitians. 4) The correlation coefficients between two groups were as follows : Spearman's rho value of personality, skills and abilities, and knowledge were 0.806, -0.432,-0.203 respectively, according to the importance scale. 5) An overall view from t test between two groups, various human attributes, especially knowledge were more frequently used by hospital dietitians.