Ways to improve secondary school teachers’ confidence in teaching food and nutrition subjects

Teachers’ self-confidence plays an important role in the successful delivery of school food and nutrition education. Their opinions of ways of improving their teaching confidence provide important insights into improving teacher support systems. This paper presents qualitative data from part of an online survey that explored Australian secondary school teachers’ perceptions of their confidence in teaching food and nutrition subjects. The online survey was conducted from May to October 2017. Out of 183 teachers who completed the survey, 165 provided written comments about ways to improve teachers’ confidence in teaching food and nutrition subjects. These textual data were uploaded to NVivo data management software and analysed using the template analysis technique. The suggested ways to improve the teachers’ confidence included: (i) provision of more professional development opportunities, (ii) ensuring teachers possess adequate food and nutrition-related knowledge and skills, (iii) provision of more resources and time for teaching and learning, (iv) being informed about up-to-date food and nutrition-related trends, and (v) improvements in the status of food and nutrition subjects within schools. Policymakers and school administrators should see how they can facilitate these suggestions to establish more favourable teacher support systems.