The Impact of Food Allergy Training on a Teacher’s Self-Efficacy when Managing Food Allergic Students

Abstract

Food allergy training for teachers remains an important, but commonly overlooked, aspect of education as millions of children have been diagnosed with food allergies. Therefore, it is pertinent teachers receive food allergy training that is most beneficial in growing a teacher's understanding for teachers to be best suited in correctly helping food allergic students. Four food allergy training methods: hands-on in-person (actual handling of epinephrine), non-hands in-person, group video, and individual video, and their effects on the self-efficacy of participants is the focus of this study. Teachers were contacted from within the city of Chicago, both public and private, and from a mixture of food allergy training methods and were administered an online survey which asked questions pertaining to their food allergy knowledge, perception, and self-efficacy. Participants were given statements to which they would respond on a five-point Likert scale, scored using a chi-square test. Ultimately, the hypothesis that teachers who engaged in hands-on in-person would showcase higher levels of self-efficacy, due to higher levels of engagement, was not supported. While several statements proved significant after data analysis, there was not enough significance to prove a meaningful relationship between the self-efficacy and training method.