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Article
Publication date: 29 April 2024

Janandani Nanayakkara, Gozde Aydin, Alison O. Booth, Anthony Worsley and Claire Margerison

This study aims to examine Victorian primary school parents’ perspectives about a potential school-provided lunch program (LP).

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine Victorian primary school parents’ perspectives about a potential school-provided lunch program (LP).

Design/methodology/approach

An online cross-sectional survey was conducted in Victoria, Australia, in 2022 to explore parents’ perceptions regarding the lunch menu, funding source, amount willing to pay, frequency of meals and special dietary needs of a school-provided LP.

Findings

Over half of parents (57% out of 359) said they would allow their child to participate in a school LP, 34% were unsure and only 9% said they would not. The opportunity for hot cooked lunches at school and the perceived convenience for parents were the top two reasons for favouring such a program. Fifty-eight percent were in favour of hybrid-type funding from both the government and parents. The most preferred amount to pay per meal was AUD5-6 (43%), followed by AUD3-4 (25%). Parents expected meals to be healthy and made from whole food and cater to the special dietary and cultural needs of their children. They also expected enough time to be allocated so children could eat and enjoy the meals.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore Victorian parents’ perceptions regarding the above aspects of a school-provided LP. The findings suggest that parents are receptive to a school-provided LP; they, however, did have several expectations regarding the menu and time for eating. These findings provide important directions for designing future school-provided LPs at primary schools in Australia.

Details

Young Consumers, vol. 25 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1747-3616

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 May 2024

Gozde Aydin, Claire Margerison, Anthony Worsley and Alison Booth

Schools have long been perceived as an ideal setting to support the healthy eating behaviours of children. The aim of the study was to examine the views of Australian primary…

Abstract

Purpose

Schools have long been perceived as an ideal setting to support the healthy eating behaviours of children. The aim of the study was to examine the views of Australian primary school parents regarding school food and nutrition, including education, practices and policy.

Design/methodology/approach

An online survey was conducted among 787 parents in March 2021, which included closed and open-ended questions.

Findings

The results indicated the inconsistent implementation of policies and/or varying practices among different schools. Parents’ views were slightly associated with some demographic and personal measures including their SES levels, education, age, the main language spoken at home and universalism values. Parents viewed healthy food provision through canteens, policies and informing parents, fruit and vegetable breaks and kitchen and garden programs as the main contributors to the promotion of healthy eating. They believed unhealthy options in canteens, school fairs, events and birthdays are the major contributors to the formation of unhealthy eating habits among children at schools. Results revealed the efforts to establish health promoting school food environments in Australian primary schools; however, inconsistencies and discrepancies among schools should be addressed to ensure equity among all children.

Practical implications

The findings may provide directions for policymakers and school managers and can inform future reforms and initiatives in Australian primary schools and elsewhere.

Originality/value

This is the first study that has examined Australian parents’ views of school food policy, practices and environments using a mixed-methods design.

Details

Health Education, vol. 124 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-4283

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 November 2021

Gozde Aydin, Claire Margerison, Anthony Worsley and Alison Booth

This paper examines the views of Australian primary school parents regarding the food and nutrition education (FNE) curriculum. Associations with personal values (Universalism and…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper examines the views of Australian primary school parents regarding the food and nutrition education (FNE) curriculum. Associations with personal values (Universalism and Hedonism) and demographic measures were also explored.

Design/methodology/approach

An online survey was conducted among 787 parents in March 2021. Parents rated the importance of 17 FNE topics. They were also asked about their support for six curriculum improvements and to state their own improvement suggestions.

Findings

Parents viewed the “Effect of food on health” and “Food hygiene” as the most important topics. Three FNE components were derived: (1) food safety and preparation, (2) health and nutrition information, (3) food origins and environmental sustainability. The “Food safety and preparation” component score was associated with both universalism-nature and hedonism values but negatively associated with parental education. The “Health and nutrition information” component score was associated with universalism-nature value and main language spoken at home. Lastly, the “Food origins and environmental sustainability” component score was associated with universalism-nature value. The two personal values, universalism-nature and hedonism, were more strongly associated with parents' views of curriculum topics than parental demographic characteristics. Parents had several criticisms of current FNE, including school food environments not resonating with FNE taught in the classroom and that FNE might increase the risk of eating disorders. They also suggested that the FNE curriculum should support both parents and teachers by providing relevant resources and training.

Originality/value

Australian parents' views of the importance of FNE topics and how to improve FNE in primary schools have been under-examined.

Details

Health Education, vol. 122 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-4283

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 June 2022

Janandani Nanayakkara, Gail Boddy, Gozde Aydin, Krupa Thammaiah Kombanda, Christel Larsson, Anthony Worsley, Claire Margerison and Alison O. Booth

During the COVID-19 pandemic people worldwide in the same household spent more time together and school children engaged in remote learning throughout extended lockdowns and…

Abstract

Purpose

During the COVID-19 pandemic people worldwide in the same household spent more time together and school children engaged in remote learning throughout extended lockdowns and restrictions. The present study aimed to explore parents' perceptions of their involvement and enjoyment in food-related interactions with their children during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-associated lockdowns/restrictions and changes in their children's food intake, especially children's lunches during the remote learning period.

Design/methodology/approach

Data from parents (n = 136) were collected via an online survey in 2020. Parents' responses to closed-ended questions were analysed via descriptive statistics and open-ended responses were analysed thematically.

Findings

Most parents (62%) reported that they interacted more with their school-aged (5–17 years) children about food during COVID-19 compared to pre-pandemic times. These interactions included cooking, menu planning, eating, conversations around food, and gardening. Most parents (74%) prepared meals with their children during the pandemic and most of them (89%) reported that they enjoyed it. Most parents (n = 91 out of 121) perceived that their children's lunches during remote learning were different to when attending school in person and these changes included eating hot and home-cooked food and more elaborate meals.

Originality/value

This study sheds important insights into a sample of Australian parents' food-related interactions with their school-aged children during the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns and parents' observations and perceptions of changes in the children's food intake during the remote learning period.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 125 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 May 2021

Gozde Aydin, Alison Booth, Claire Margerison and Anthony Worsley

Primary schools provide continuous, intensive contact with large numbers of children starting from a young age, thus providing an appropriate setting for the promotion of healthy…

Abstract

Purpose

Primary schools provide continuous, intensive contact with large numbers of children starting from a young age, thus providing an appropriate setting for the promotion of healthy eating through food and nutrition education (FNE). This qualitative study explores the views of Australian primary school parents about FNE in primary schools.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 19 parents of primary school children from Victoria participated in semi-structured interviews. Audio recordings were transcribed and underwent thematic analysis using Nvivo. A total of three themes emerged: FNE topics currently taught in primary schools, essential food skills and knowledge for primary school children and the importance of FNE.

Findings

Most parents thought that FNE is as important as the core subjects of primary school. Parental support for FNE, which is delivered over a prolonged period, and expanded by hands-on content such as cooking and gardening classes was evident. Parents viewed these classes as likely to improve children's food-related knowledge and healthy eating behaviours. Parents expressed appreciation for schools' emphasis on food sustainability and its alignment with school policies and practices. Parents were keen to see more sustainability included in the curriculum.

Practical implications

These results may have implications for curriculum developers and schools, as the findings can assist the design of food and nutrition curricula for primary schools which can empower children as well as their families to make better food-related decisions.

Originality/value

Australian parents' views of FNE in primary schools have been under examined.

Details

Health Education, vol. 121 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-4283

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 March 2022

Abdullah Tanrısevdi, Gözde Öztürk and Ahmet Cumhur Öztürk

The purpose of this study is to develop a review rating prediction method based on a supervised text mining approach for unrated customer reviews.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to develop a review rating prediction method based on a supervised text mining approach for unrated customer reviews.

Design/methodology/approach

Using 2,851 hotel comment card (HCC) reviews, this paper manually labeled positive and negative comments with seven aspects (dining, cleanliness, service, entertainment, price, public, room) that emerged from the content of said reviews. After text preprocessing (tokenization, eliminating punctuation, stemming, etc.), two classifier models were created for predicting the reviews’ sentiments and aspects. Thus, an aggregate rating scale was generated using these two classifier models to determine overall rating values.

Findings

A new algorithm, Comment Rate (CRate), based on supervised learning, is proposed. The results are compared with another review-rating algorithm called location based social matrix factorization (LBSMF) to check the consistency of the proposed algorithm. It is seen that the proposed algorithm can predict the sentiments better than LBSMF. The performance evaluation is performed on a real data set, and the results indicate that the CRate algorithm truly predicts the overall rating with ratio 80.27%. In addition, the CRate algorithm can generate an overall rating prediction scale for hotel management to automatically analyze customer reviews and understand the sentiment thereof.

Research limitations/implications

The review data were only collected from a resort hotel during a limited period. Therefore, this paper cannot explore the effect of independent variables on the dependent variable in context of larger period.

Practical implications

This paper provides a novel overall rating prediction technique allowing hotel management to improve their operations. With this feature, hotel management can evaluate guest feedback through HCCs more effectively and quickly. In this way, the hotel management will be able to identify those service areas that need to be developed faster and more effectively. In addition, this review rating prediction approach can be applied to customer reviews posted via online platforms for detecting review and rating reliability.

Originality/value

Manually analyzing textual information is time-consuming and can lead to measurement errors. Therefore, the primary contribution of this study is that although comment cards do not have rating values, the proposed CRate algorithm can predict the overall rating and understand the sentiment of the reviews in question.

Details

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 34 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-6119

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 30 July 2018

Abstract

Details

Marketing Management in Turkey
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-558-0

Article
Publication date: 30 November 2021

Gözde Konuk Ege, Hüseyin Yüce, Özge Akay, Hasbi Öner and Garip Genç

This paper aims to address the production of biocomposite nanofibers using luffa natural fibers and polyaniline conductive polymer/polyethylene oxides (PANI/PEO).

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to address the production of biocomposite nanofibers using luffa natural fibers and polyaniline conductive polymer/polyethylene oxides (PANI/PEO).

Design/methodology/approach

In this study, luffa natural fibers are extracted by chemical method. After mixing the treated luffa (TL) with the PANI/PEO solution, TL/PANI/PEO nanofibers were produced by electrospinning (ES) method under different ES parameters to examine the optimal conditions for nanofiber production. Then TL/PANI/PEO biocomposite nanofibers prepared in different weight ratios were produced to analyze the effects of luffa in the morphology and thermal properties of the biocomposite nanofibers. The characterization analysis of TL/PANI/PEO biocomposite nanofibers was performed by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis methods.

Findings

The analysis shows that different weight ratios of TL to PANI/PEO changed the morphology of the membrane. When increasing the weight ratio of TL, the morphological structure of TL/PANI/PEO transformed from nanofiber structure to thin film structure. The appearance of O—H peaks in the FTIR results proved the existence of TL in PANI/PEO nanofibers (membrane). Moreover, an increase in the weight ratio of luffa from 2% to 7.5% leads to an increase in the peak intensity of the O—H group. Regarding DSC analysis, biocomposite nanofibers improved the thermal properties. According to all results, 2%wt TL/PANI/PEO showed optimal morphological properties.

Originality/value

Plant cellulose was extracted from the luffa, one of the natural fibers, by method of alkali treatment. A new type of biocomposite nanofibers was produced using TL blend with PANI via electrospinning method.

Details

Pigment & Resin Technology, vol. 52 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0369-9420

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 10 February 2020

Seval Kardeş Selimoğlu and Mehtap Altunel

Along with accounting scandals in the past, academics, researchers, and legislators have focused on fraud. The purpose of this study is to examine postgraduate and doctoral…

Abstract

Along with accounting scandals in the past, academics, researchers, and legislators have focused on fraud. The purpose of this study is to examine postgraduate and doctoral studies, articles, and books about forensic accounting and fraud audit published between the years 2008 and 2018 in Turkey. For this purpose, a total of 96 studies have been examined and 35 of these are master’s theses, 10 of them are PhD theses, 45 of them are articles, and six of them are books. These studies were presented in tables as classified. The studies examined in our research are summarized as year they were published, the author, and the scope of the topic and in terms of results. The conclusions of this study can be summarized as follows: (a) the majority of thesis published about forensic accounting and fraud audit are in 2011 and following years. In addition, most of the theses are focused on forensic accounting review rather than fraud audit. (b) Results in the articles reviewed are in the same direction with theses. (c) There are very few books about fraud audit and forensic accounting. One of them is related to fraud audit, while the rest of them are related to forensic accounting and forensic accounting profession. We suggest extending the scope of the study and making to other countries.

Details

Contemporary Issues in Audit Management and Forensic Accounting
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-636-0

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 August 2015

Afsin Gungor, Murat Gokcek, Fusun Yalcin, Abdulkadir Kocer, Ismet Faruk Yaka and Gozde Tugce Sardogan

Knowledge of the local solar radiation is important for many applications of solar energy systems. The global solar radiation on horizontal surface at the location of interest is…

Abstract

Knowledge of the local solar radiation is important for many applications of solar energy systems. The global solar radiation on horizontal surface at the location of interest is the most critical input parameter employed in the design and prediction of the performance of solar energy systems. In this study, 3 empirical sunshine based models are compared correlating the monthly mean daily global solar radiation on a horizontal surface with monthly mean sunshine records for Nigde, Turkey. Models are compared using coefficient of determination (R2), the root mean square error (RMSE), the mean bias error (MBE) and the t-statistic. According to our results, all the models fitted the data adequately and can be used to estimate the specific monthly global solar radiation. The t-statistic was used as the best indicator; this indicator depends on both, and is more effective for determining the model performance. The agreement between the estimated and the measured data were remarkable and the method was recommended for use in Nigde, Turkey.

Details

World Journal of Engineering, vol. 12 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1708-5284

Keywords

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