The effect of a six-week education intervention on athletes' nutrition knowledge and self-efficacy

The current study assessed the effect of a six-week sports nutrition education intervention on the sports nutrition knowledge and self-efficacy in collegiate student- athletes at a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II institution. Few NCAA institutions sponsor sports nutrition programs, and research has indicated most collegiate athletes lack the sports nutrition knowledge necessary to practice appropriate sports nutrition (Abood, Black, & Birnbaum, 2004; Nichols, Jonnalagadda, Rosenbloom, & Trinkaus, 2005; Zawila et al., 2003). The results of this study revealed that the participants did initially have a poor knowledge of sports nutrition, although the participants' initial self-efficacy was relatively high. The results also indicated that the experimental group had significantly higher post-intervention sports nutrition knowledge when compared to both the control group's post-test (between-groups) and the experimental group's own pre-test (within-groups). The experimental group also exhibited significantly higher between- and within-groups self-efficacy. A final finding of this study is that when provided an opportunity to improve their sports nutrition knowledge, many student-athletes do not take advantage of the opportunity. This finding was in alignment with the findings of Froiland, Koszewski, Hingst, and Kpecky (2004). As a result of these findings, several recommendations were made as to how components of this study might be further developed to bring about an even more effective sports nutrition education program that is highly attractive to collegiate student-athletes.