Vegetable consumption amongst Australians has been always been low. The Australian government wants to know what the best strategy is to change this unhealthy food pattern. You are asked to investigate why Australians avoid vegetables by conducting interviews with at least 10 people. Half of these people need to eat 4-5 serves of vegetables each day (high consumers) and the other half needs to eat 3or fewer serves of vegetables every day (low consumers). It is your task to investigate, and gain an understanding of, the differences between these 2 groups. You should choose people from a specific age group, gender or population group to investigate – eg women aged 50-60.
You need to investigate this by developing a short questionnaire which is based either on the Theory of Planned Behaviour or the Health Belief Model. You then need to conduct the research and report on and discuss the findings.
These are general instructions. For greater detail and examples on layout, see tutorials 3 – 6.
INTRODUCTION:
1. Write a short introduction for the topic. It should have 3 paragraphs:
Paragraph 1) Explain why it is important to investigate the reasons that Australians avoid vegetables. You should build a logical argument here by considering consumption amounts for vegetables in Australia and the health benefits of a high intake.
Paragraph 2) Research the reasons that people avoid vegetables. Try to consider factors/reasons that would specifically impact on the group you are studying, rather than just general factors.
Paragraph 3) Describe in detail the behavioural model (use TPB or HBM) you think is most suitable to answer your research question and why. Give a reason for people skipping vegetables for each part of the model you have chosen.
2. Develop a specific research aim, which fits a quantitative research design (eg To determine why Australian female students aged 20-25 do not consume enough vegetables)
METHOD
3. Write 3 paragraphs to clarify your method:
Paragraph 1) Explain how the interviews were conducted with your 10 respondents. Remember your will have 2 groups, a “high” consumer group and a “low” consuming group
Paragraph 2) Explain how you recruited your participants and describe them in enough detail to replicate what you did
Paragraph 3 ) Present your questionnaire. You must develop a questionnaire which is aligned to either the Theory of Planned Behaviour or the Health Belief Model. Make sure that every element of the chosen model is well covered. Examples of questions are given in tute 4.
4. Write up the results in a concise manner. Try not to get bogged down in repetition and avoid vague statements. Try to use tables and figures to illustrate your findings. What you state in a table or figure does not have to be repeated in detail in your text. Do state what each figure and table shows and do state the most important findings. This is not the section for discussing the meaning behind your findings; rather it is simply a reporting of them. Stick with simple statistics such as means. See tute 5 for more instructions.
DISCUSSION
5. Discuss your findings in a discussion section. REFERENCING IS ESSENTIAL. What do your results mean? Link your findings to the known literature and your rationale you introduced in your introduction. Do you findings support or contradict the literature? Have they any implications for current theories in the area? Are they novel findings? Do they have any implications for public policy? Also, make sure you consider the main limitations of the study and try to suggest further research.
6. Draw a clear conclusion from your research. See tute 6 for more instructions.