The evaluation of the image of the culture profession within the scope of demensional gastronomy education: A research on students taking online education

Many professions have emerged from the early ages to the present day. In this context, cooking is an ancient profession that has been done by people since ancient times. Especially in recent years, the importance of this profession has increased considerably and more preferred. People usually consider the image of that profession when choosing a profession. Because people's choosing a profession that is compatible with their personal characteristics will increase the efficiency of that profession. In this context, the value and image of a profession are the biggest factors in choosing the profession. When the literature is scanned, it is seen that image determination studies are mainly carried out on nursing and teaching professions. However, it is seen that there are not enough studies on the image of the culinary profession. The aim of this study is in online environment to measure the perceptions of the students who receive non-formal gastronomy education about the culinary profession. In order to achieve this aim, “Image Scale of Culinary Profession” has been developed. This scale consists of 14 items and 4 dimensions. These factors are; It was named as Professional Characteristics (5 items), Personal Characteristics (3 items), Competence (3 items) and Behavioral Characteristics (3 items). The average score that can be obtained from the test is 2.5, the top score is 5, and the base score is 1. The created questionnaire was applied to 391 participants who received gastronomy training in in online environment private education institutions. These data were analysed with SPSS and AMOS programs and subjected to validity and reliability tests. Then t-test was applied to the data. As a result of the test, very significant and positive results were obtained regarding the image of the culinary profession. In addition, it was determined that the image perception of the culinary profession differed according to the demographic characteristics of the students. In this context, it was concluded that the score of the Professional Traits dimension was 4.16, the Personal Traits score was 4.46, the Competencies score was 4.43, and the behavioral traits score was 4.15. The overall score average was found to be 4.28. The results show that the culinary profession has a very positive image for students who receive non-formal gastronomy education.