Virginia Tech
Understanding Facilitators and Barriers to the Selection of Dietetics as a major by African American students
Abstract
dc:description.abstractLess than 5% of registered dietitians are African-American individuals. Little has been done to investigate reasons for the paucity of African-American professionals in the dietetics field. The specific aim of this study was, therefore, to explore facilitators and barriers to the selection of dietetics as a major by African-American students. Individual elicitation interviews and focus group discussions with African-American students currently enrolled as dietetics and non-dietetics majors at Virginia Tech were conducted. It was hypothesized that African-American students who chose to major in dietetics did so primarily for altruistic reasons, whereas African-American students who did not major in dietetics did so, in part, because of a lack of awareness of the major. Forty African-American students (mean ± SD age = 21.4 ± 1.4 years) participated in individual elicitation interviews and focus group discussions. Hypotheses were supported. In addition, personal interest was indicated by both dietetics and non-dietetics students as a factor in selection of major. Non-dietetics students believed that barriers to the selection of dietetics as a major included poor advertising and poor recruitment efforts. Directors of didactic programs in dietetics may need to create more visible recruitment and retention programs to increase the number of African-American students majoring in dietetics.
Degree
thesis:*- Name thesis:degree_name
- Master of Science
- Level thesis:degree_level
- masters
- Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
- Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise
- Department dc:contributor.department
- Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise
- Grantor dc:publisher
- Virginia Tech
- Year dc:date.issued
- 2007
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Felton, Teena M.
- Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair
-
- Hosig, Kathryn W.
- Nickols-Richardson, Sharon M.
- Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember
-
- Serrano, Elena L.
Subjects
dc:subject × 4Rights
dc:rights- Statement dc:rights
-
- In Copyright
- Licence dc:rights.uri
Identifiers
dc:identifier.*- Dc Identifier Other
- etd-05152007-165730
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/42664