Developing a Model for an Innovative Culinary Competency Curriculum and Examining Its Effects on Students' Performance

Effects on skills and knowledge of a sensory teaching program for culinary students

Culinary practitioners (chefs and healthcare cooks) need tools to systematically assess and improve the sensory quality and acceptance of the food they produce. Sensory science provides these tools to develop, revise and improve foods. However, in the culinary arts educations in Denmark teaching in sensory science is limited. We developed a teaching programme for culinary arts educations, focusing on the use of central practices of sensory science in production kitchens. The teaching programme was tested and developed in dialogue with vocational teachers and culinary students. The material consists of five theoretical and practical teaching modules that cover topics such as the senses, sensory vocabulary development and training, fast sensory methods and factors contributing to palatability. In total, 137 culinary students participated in the teaching programme. The goal was to make culinary students master sensory evaluation techniques and improve their ability to develop food that is liked by consumers. Consequently, these practitioners can improve the sensory quality and acceptance of sustainable and healthy foods. Learning outcomes in a combined sensory knowledge (ten questions) and skills test (eight sensory tasks) were examined. Altogether 89 culinary students participated in both the baseline and follow-up test. Results demonstrate a highly significant effect in both domains. The knowledge scores were significantly higher after than before the course and the scores in the skills tests revealed a significant improvement of culinary students’ vocabulary after completing the course as measured by a higher number and quality of descriptors used to describe four different foods in an open description task. A higher number of descriptors used to describe foods by means of a check-all-that-apply (CATA) sensory descriptive methodology emphasized these findings. Integrating a course on sensory science and methods into the culinary arts educations leads to significant improvement of culinary students’ sensory vocabulary, knowledge and skills. The sensory educational programme is available in Danish with elaborate instructions for teachers through Taste for Life’s online services. Additionally, to train vocational teachers so they can teach it themselves, virtual courses on the sensory educational content were created in 2021 and are accessible online.

Sustainable Innovation in Higher Education: The Impact of Gender on Innovation Competences

There is currently an increasing interest for sustainable innovation in our society. The European agendas highlight the role of higher education institutions in the formation and development of innovation competences among students. Our study aimed to contribute to the analysis of the level of achievement of students’ innovation competences by considering two sustainable development goals (SDG) of the 2030 United Nations’ Agenda: Gender Equality (SDG 5) and Quality Education (SDG 4). This article tries to answer how business students perceive their own innovation competences and which innovative competences are best achieved by students, as well as if there are differences in the achievement of these competences depending on the students’ gender. Our results, from a sample of 360 students in the Business Administration and Management Bachelor’s Degree at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, confirm the extensive development of innovation competences. Moreover, female students present a high level of preparation for innovation-oriented action. These findings have educational implications for potentiating the innovation competences and environments where females can attain innovation skills.