Creación de la escuela y proceso educacional

The sub-sections within section 2.1 have presented an overview of the literature relating to food safety from an IT perspective. It has discussed food safety with an IT lens in terms of presenting basic information about food chains, explaining food safety while ensuring a distinction between food safety and food quality, discussing the regulatory solutions to food safety issues and presenting recent research on safe food management from an IT perspective. The findings within this section have identified the following key points and gaps in the existing body of literature;

 Food safety is seen as an important dimension for growers, manufacturers, food businesses and consumers. However, as consumers tend to believe that any food on the shelf is intrinsically safe, there is a tendency for them to rely on supply chain actors for ensuring the safety of the product, thus absolving themselves of any safe food handling responsibility.

 The concern with many of the regulatory solutions to food safety issues is that most of them are largely focused on supply chain activities from ‘paddock-to- purchase’ (pre-purchase) as the legal obligations of supply chain partners on food safety tends to be completed once consumers purchase the products (Bamgboje-Ayodele et al., 2016). Thus, mitigating food safety risks during the process of consumption (post-purchase), which entails domestic food management and handling from the point of purchase (purchase) to the point of actual consumption (plate), is largely the responsibility of consumers.

 To develop a holistic food safety intervention from an IT perspective, it is imperative to: identify existing research on the food behaviour and culture of the target audience and to conduct a formative investigation to identify the existing information gaps and the appropriate information delivery channels and information sources for the target audience.

Chapter Summary 2.5

This chapter has presented a review of the literature that is most relevant to this research investigation. The review discussed four sections which comprises the major aspects of the proposed research, in terms of food safety from an IT perspective, information and communication technologies (ICTs), consumer behaviour and knowledge management. The first section discussed the body of literature that has been reviewed concerning the research context in terms of food safety using an Information Technology (IT) lens while explaining food chains, regulatory solutions to food safety issues and safe food management from a consumer perspective. The second section discussed information and communication technologies (ICTs) in terms of the pervasiveness of ICT, and mobile computing which includes smartphone use and food management as well as smartphone apps and usability, context of use & attributes of end-users in safe food management. The third section discussed consumer behaviour in relation to the context

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of this research in terms of an introduction to consumer behaviour, communication from an information modality perspective, consumer and food information processing peculiarities, consumer food behaviour and risk communication & ICTs. The fourth section discussed an introduction to data, information and knowledge and progresses by discussing information management and knowledge management concepts. Following this, it discussed knowledge optimisation as KM based on an individual unit of analysis, by focusing on knowledge acquisition, knowledge retention and knowledge application. The findings of this review have identified the following key points and gaps in the existing body of literature;

 The concern with many of the regulatory solutions to food safety issues is that most of them are largely focused on supply chain activities from ‘paddock-to- purchase’ (pre-purchase) as the legal obligations of supply chain partners on food safety tends to be completed once consumers purchase the products (Bamgboje-Ayodele et al., 2016). Thus, mitigating food safety risks during the process of consumption (post-purchase), which entails domestic food management and handling from the point of purchase (purchase) to the point of actual consumption (plate), is largely the responsibility of consumers.

 To develop a holistic food safety intervention from an IT perspective, it is imperative to: identify the appropriate information delivery channel; identify the appropriate source of information; determine the appropriate information content; determine the categories of consumer clusters; and to target the audience.

 There has been limited focus on the actual use, usability, context of use and attributes of the end-users in relation to each of the different areas in which mobile computing has been incorporated in recent times.

 There is a need for a smartphone app that seamlessly integrates all the different stages of safe food handling while addressing each stage with a focus on safety for Australian consumers.

 There is insufficient evidence that the few existing apps that have attempted to address one, some or all of the different stages of the consumer food handling practices from the point of purchase till actual consumption have been evaluated. The few apps that have however been evaluated are largely focused on the

usability of the app whilst many have failed to unpack the inter-relatedness of usability, context of use and attribute & behaviour of the end-users; all of which are fundamental to the holistic evaluation of such apps.

 This research has uncovered a gap in our knowledge on the consumer understanding, knowledge retention and the corresponding translation into behaviour of safe food handling and management which may well be a medium to high involvement task; thus requiring investigation.

 It is imperative to investigate the norms, attitude and behaviour of the target audience (consumers) in relation to food but more specifically food handling and management practices.

 There is a need to investigate the influence and use of ICTs and its complexities (information presentation, information delivery channels, information content and information sources) on consumers’ food management behaviours.

 Whilst this research acknowledges the importance of digital pedagogical frameworks in relation to knowledge acquisition and the relevance of a few of its concepts to this research, it however argues that this research is not submerged within the digital educational research space as it is only tangentially relevant to the context defined for this study.

 Evidence suggests that interventions in Australia that aim to improve consumer domestic food management practices should incorporate an approach that does not only involve the consumers but targets the knowledge to their needs using an end-to-end approach, which involves knowledge on safe shopping, transportation, storage, preparation, and kitchen hygiene within the Australian context.

CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

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Introduction 3.1

This chapter describes the methodology used in this research in order to achieve the aim and objectives of this study. The chapter is divided into the following sections:

 Section 3.2 presents the research philosophy and the underpinning subjective ontology and a pragmatic epistemology approach that supported the research.  Section 3.3 describes the research strategy. This includes a single case study, a

survey, a usability study, and a field experiment which were incorporated into a three-phase data collection strategy. The three-phase data collection strategy spanned all three research phases.

 Section 3.4 describes the three-stage research design. First, the research aims and questions are re-introduced. The Preliminary Stage, Phase One: Investigating Knowledge Gaps – Firm Perspective involved a case study approach which explored the role played by a food firm in updating consumers’ food safety knowledge during a food recall incident. The Advanced Stage, Phase One: Investigating Knowledge Gaps – Consumer Perspective involved exploring safe food management knowledge gaps of consumers. Phase Two: Design and Development of the Safe Food Management App, involved the process of the design and development of a smartphone app aimed at addressing consumers’ safe food management knowledge gaps identified in phase one. Phase Three: Implementing and Evaluating the Safe Food Management App involved the process of implementing and evaluating the smartphone app that was developed in phase two to determine its impact on consumers’ knowledge acquisition, knowledge retention and perceived behavioural change.

 Section 3.5 presents the tools and techniques that were used in the three stages of the data collection process that supported the research strategy. The preliminary stage, phase one used semi structured interviews, field notes and document reviews. The advanced stage, phase one and phase three both used survey. Phase two used focus group and survey. This section concludes with the ethics approval for this research

 Section 3.6 describes the data analysis approach for each of the research stages. To achieve the research objectives, thematic analysis with an inductive iterative

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approach was used for the qualitative data while descriptive and inferential statistics were used for the quantitative data. This led to the description of the analytical approach.

 Section 3.7 describes the data discussion and interpretation approach used for the research.

 Section 3.8 provides a summary of the chapter.

Research Philosophy 3.2

This section presents the research philosophy and discusses the ontological and epistemological positions of the researcher; as it is imperative for a clear and concise methodology to be identified and followed (Rajasekar et al., 2006). As much as the aims of this research highly influences this research, so do the philosophical assumptions, research context and researcher preferences (Trauth, 2001). The philosophical perception defines the lens through which the research is conducted which in turn affects the type of data collected and the way it was collected and analysed. The philosophical assumption underpinning this research adopts a subjective ontology and a pragmatic epistemology.

3.2.1 Ontology

Ontology refers to the provision of an account of the entities that exist within a domain of reality (Grenon and Smith, 2011). Reality is created through people’s interactions and beliefs (Neuman, 2005). Ontology is concerned with the nature of all things (Mason, 1996). The ontology determines how the data collected through a research relates to the world. There are two competing philosophical stances within this paradigm: realist and relativist. A realist is also known as an objectivist while a relativist is a subjectivist. In an ontological context, the question to be asked is this; can the phenomena occur in an objective setting – without human interaction, or does the phenomenon occur only through human actions in creating, acting and interpreting it (Burrell and Morgan, 1979)? A research conducted through the objective approach separates the influence of the researcher from the research as the world can only be seen in one way while the subjective approach immerses the researcher and the research participants in the process as the world differs based on who is viewing it (Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991). The phenomenon under study is not assumed to be unproblematic and value free, therefore

the researcher is inclined to interpret the interactions and meanings within the phenomenon (Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991).

Therefore, in order to answer the research questions posed, a subjective ontology has been adopted as it offers the opportunity to discover the different meanings and interpretations given by each participant. In order to understand how different consumers interact with food safety apps, it is the individual’s perceptions, actions and meanings behind those actions that the researcher is concerned with. The subjective ontological position also allows the interpretive use of numeric information which has the ability to add valuable insights to the subjective perspective each respondent will offer the researcher. Since the study concerns human behaviour, but more specifically, consumer behaviour, it is thus expected that the truth emanating from this research is circumstantial. As such, the most appropriate ontology for this research is of a subjective nature.

3.2.2 Epistemology

Epistemology is the philosophy of knowledge or how researchers have come to know (Trochim and Donnelly, 2008). It is the assumption about knowledge and the process of acquiring it (Hirschheim and Klein, 1992). This means that epistemology deals with the concept of ‘knowing’ as a whole. Within this belief, there are two major schools of thought: positivism and interpretivism. The positivist paradigm for this belief shows that the researcher and the subject of enquiry are mutually exclusive of one another while the interpretivist paradigm shows that the researcher and subject of enquiry cannot be separated, which means they have to interrelate with one another.

Despite the fact that the ontological and epistemological positions of a researcher are two different entities, Walsham (1995) has suggested that they do not always illustrate inter-linkages and certain ontological positions do not always lead to a pre-determined epistemology as incorporated in this study. Thus, though the ontological position of this research is subjective, the epistemological position draws on the pragmatism approach. The pragmatism approach is rooted in the works of Pierce, James, Mead and Dewey as highlighted by Azzopardi and Nash (2014). Pragmatism accepts that there are singular and multiple realities which are open to empirical enquiry and adjusts towards solving

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practical problems in the “real world” (Creswell and Clark, 2007). Therefore, the pragmatists view the measurable world as an “existential reality” thus making reference to an experiential world with different elements or layers, some objective, some subjective and some a mixture of both (Feilzer, 2010).

Within this epistemological stance, knowledge is viewed as being both constructed and based on the reality of the world we experience and live in (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie, 2004). According to Azzopardi and Nash (2014) citing Creswell et al. (2003), knowledge claims “arise out of action, situations and consequences”. Creswell et al. (2003) has argued for the importance of focusing attention on the research problem rather than the method as well as the use of pluralistic approaches to derive knowledge about the problem.

This practice-oriented approach allows the research to consider “what” and “how” to research based on its intended consequences. Within this research, the Preliminary Stage, Phase One: Investigating Knowledge Gaps – Firm Perspective phase helped the research to determine what to investigate, by providing insights into the sources of consumer food safety knowledge gaps during food incidents and by re-directing the researcher from the firm perspective towards focusing on the consumer perspective. It also helped the researcher to determine how to conduct the investigation, by directing the researcher towards the use of a quantitative approach in Advanced Stage, Phase One: Investigating Knowledge Gaps – Consumer Perspective which led to the subsequent phases of the research.