Food safety knowledge and practices of vocational school of tourism students

This study was planned and carried out with the aim of indicating differentlevels of knowledge and practices between the students of Vocational School ofTourism who had food safety education and who did not. In total, three hundredstudents participated in our study; two hundred of them were grade 1 and 2 studentsfrom Tourism and Hotel Management Department and a hundred of them wereTourism Guidance Department grade 1 and 2 students. The group of students withfood safety education were 2nd grade students from Tourism and Hotel ManagementDepartment.Data for the study was gathered through questionnaires and it was analyzedusing SPSS programme version 11.5. Results were interpreted by frequencies,percentages, means and standard deviation values. Independent T-test analysis wasused to find out the significant differences between groups.When the knowledge level, ideas about risky food consumption and practicesof students were analysed, it was found out that after the training, there was asignificant increase in the level of knowledge (p<0.05); however, no significantchange in the ideas for risky food and practices was found (p>0.05). Preferences forrisky food and wrong practices were determined among untrained students. In thetotal samples of students, mayonnaise was found to be consumed by a great numberof students (%82.0) while rare hamburger was consumed by a small number ofstudents (%8.6). The findings also showed that gender caused a significant differenceon the knowledge level and ideas on risky food consumption (p<0.05); however itdidn t cause a significant difference on practises (p>0.05). Therefore, it can besuggested that food safety courses and behavioural change oriented planning shouldbe included in all programmes of tourism schools.Key words : Food safety, Vocational Schools of Tourism, Education and Teaching,Knowledge and Practice Level