Abstract
School dietitians are divided into two groups according to their status of employment, school nutrition teachers and dietitians, with the latter being irregularly employed by the institution. In this study, the job satisfaction, communication ability, work performance and importance in feeding services and dietetic counseling of both groups were compared. To accomplish this, 100 regularly employed school nutrition teachers (regularly employed) and 101 dietitians (irregularly employed) were surveyed by questionnaire. The results were as follows: (1) The irregularly employed dietitians showed a lower level of job satisfaction than the school nutrition teachers. This was likely because the school nutrition teachers belonged to the strong inner circle of school teachers and cafeteria workers, and had enough time to prepare for class lectures and consultancy. Conversely, the irregularly employed dietitians generally handle extra office work in addition to their primary duties. Despite these differences, both parties agreed that it was necessary to change the work system. Additionally, school dietitians reported that they had little opportunity for further training for career development. (2) Both parties had good communication skills; however, the irregularly employed dietitians had more conflicts with other staff members than the regular employees. (3) Job performance and job importance level was compared among employees involved in school feeding services and nutrition counseling. No significant differences were observed between dietitians and nutrition teachers in either group (p<0.05). However, the school nutrition teachers showed better skills than school dietitian with respect to public relations, running independent counseling offices, and using effective tools and materials. Job performance level was lower when compared to job importance level for all items, which meant the job was not well performed when compared to the work importance awareness.