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Whole Grain Willingness Questionnaire: Examining College Students’ Attitudes Toward Consuming Whole Grains Through Exploratory Factor Analysis

Nutrition educators encourage the consumption of whole grain foods because the Dietary Guidelines for Americans promote whole grain intake to reduce the risk of chronic disease. Nutrition interventions promoting whole grain consumption may fail to demonstrate behavior change, but learning theories such as the Theory of Planned Behavior would suggest that a change in attitude (willingness) occurs before behavior change. A shift in willingness to consume whole grain items would indicate movement toward change. This study developed a “Whole Grain Willingness Questionnaire” to evaluate college students’ willingness to consume 10 whole grain foods that were identified through focus group interviews. These foods included: whole wheat roll, whole grain/brown rice, whole grain cereal, whole wheat toast, whole grain granola bar, whole wheat pasta, whole grain tortilla, whole wheat hamburger bun, multi‐grain crackers, and whole wheat bagel. 249 students 18–29 years of age attending Louisiana State University participated in the study. Students were recruited from the following classes: Principles of Management (n=146, 59%), Introduction to Nutrition (n=61, 25%), Introduction to Mass Media (n=29, 12%), and Food Theory and Skills. The students’ mean age was 20.1 ± 1.8 years. 170 (68%) were Caucasian, 41 (16%) were African American, 15 (6%) were Hispanic/Latino, 23 (9%) were from other racial groups or of mixed race, and 1 student did not provide race/ethnicity. 162 (65%) were female. Willingness data were gathered using a 4‐point Likert‐type scale ranging from “always unwilling” to “always willing,” with an option to select “never eaten.” Exploratory Factor Analysis using Principal Axis Factoring returned 1 factor, which included all the survey items and explained 58.3% of the variance. The internal consistency measured using Cronbach's alpha was .930. The “Whole Grain Willingness Questionnaire” appears to be a valuable tool to assist nutrition educators in the evaluation of participants’ attitudes toward consuming whole grain foods.