Utilizing Task Clarification and Self-Monitoring to Increase Food Temperature Checks Among Restaurant Staff

Abstract

A within-group reversal design was employed to evaluate the effects of task clarification and self-monitoring on low frequency food preparation behaviors of 16 kitchen employees who worked at one location of a nation-wide restaurant chain. An informal functional assessment was conducted prior to intervention to identify variables responsible for the low frequency of food temperature checks. Based on the assessment results, task clarification and self-monitoring treatments were implemented. The results showed that the mean percentage of appropriate food temperature checks in the first baseline phase was 14%, 17% in the task clarification phase, 51% in the self-monitoring phase, and 31% in the second baseline phase. The results suggest that task clarification alone, in this situation, was not sufficient to effectively increase performance and self-monitoring is a viable approach to increase low frequency food preparation behaviors such as conducting food temperature checks.

Key Words:

• Task clarification
• self-monitoring
• low frequency food preparation behaviors