MSci, BSc Nutrition

Year 2

(Award available for year: Diploma of Higher Education)

Learning outcomes

On completion of the year/programme students should have provided evidence of being able to:

Subject specific knowledge:
- demonstrate a broad understanding of the concepts and scientific principles relevant to nutrition including:
- an understanding of the role of diet, food and nutrients in maintaining health and wellbeing throughout the human lifecycle, including the metabolism of nutrients and the physiological aspects of nutritional demand;
- an understanding of the relationship between food and physical activity in determining nutrient and energy balance, and the physiological and psychological determinants of food intake, appetite and satiety;
- role of diet and nutrients in the prevention of diet-related diseases
- demonstrate a broad understanding of the concepts and scientific principles in food chemistry and biochemistry to foster an understanding of the behaviour of foods, and the role of food molecules in determining food quality and safety;
- demonstrate a broad understanding of the concepts in quality assurance and HACCP.

Subject Specific and Intellectual Skills:
- demonstrate competencies in the identification, collection, management and evaluation of published research information in nutrition, including an understanding of the limitations of the present knowledge and application of the knowledge base to develop practice in nutrition;
- appreciate the main approaches used in nutritional research and critically evaluate the appropriateness of the different methods in the multidisciplinary approach to topics in Nutrition;
- demonstrate practical competency in advanced techniques used in diet evalutation and assessment of nutritional status;;
- demonstrate practical competency in standard laboratory techniques to undertake experiments related to the analysis of the composition of foods and the nutritional quality of foods;
- apply knowledge and intellectual skills and demonstrate awareness of cultural and ethical considerations to plan a nutritional intervention;
- demonstrate ability in a range of techniques to initiate and undertake the analysis of research data (both quantitative and qualitative) and information within the context of open ended problems and research-based exercises, this includes the use of statistical tools to analyse information from laboratory-based research and questionnaire based qualitative data;
- appreciate the main methods of enquiry in the study of food, including the application of statistical methods in sensory and quality control and the application of industry standard tools in food product development;
- demonstrate ability to use statistical tools and reasoning to validate experimental hypotheses;
- effectively communicate information, arguments and analysis in a variety of forms to include a review of the literature, presentation of results from an open ended problem in the form of a research paper and in scientific posters;
- adjust to professional and disciplinary boundaries;
- awareness of the continuing change and development of the nutrition discipline;
- to take a proactive and reflective role in learning and to develop professional relationships with others through team working exercises.

Transferable (key) skills

Students will have had the opportunity to acquire, as defined in the modules specified for the programme:
- qualities and transferable skills necessary for good academic practice and employment in the food and nutrition industry and in food and nutrition research. Key transferable skills acquired in year 1 will be further developed within the context of creative problem solving.
- communication skills will be developed through tasks involving the writing of reports, but also essays, summaries and literature review/dissertations. Numeracy and ICT skills will be developed through tasks involving the handling of complex experimental data and the use of standard statistical tools/packages to evaluate the data;
- information retrieval to include primary and secondary sources;
- reflection will be encouraged, self and peer assessment will allow students to be engage in reflection and be involved in the audit process;
- skills in self-management and planning to enable students to learn autonomously, including practice at using an on-line environment and the use of scientific diaries to work towards defined milestones;
- team working will be developed to include decision making and problem solving within a team situation;
- qualities in analytical and critical thinking;
- social and cultural sensitivity will be further developed though tasks involving real-life problems and situations.

Assessment

Achievement will be assessed by a variety of methods in accordance with the learning outcomes of the modules specified for the year/programme and will include:
- demonstrating the ability to apply a broad range of aspects/competencies of the Nutrition discipline to a range of situations (complex but common/standard situations, or simple but novel or atypical instances);
- work that is often descriptive in nature but drawing on a wide variety of material;
- demonstrating basic professional competencies relevant to the Nutrition discipline;
- the ability to evaluate and criticise received opinion.