What Women Want From A Fitness Center - Research Paper Example

Research shows that the fitness industry is expanding and that women are a large target market. Women have been shown to have high expectations about fitness center membership and the industry is increasingly responding to their particular needs. To further define our research problem, qualitative research, including focus groups, expert interviews, and individual depth interviews, was undertaken which gave additional insight into the special demands and desires of female fitness center customers, aged between 20 and 40 years, living in Los Angeles, California.

A questionnaire was designed, using nominal, ordinal and interval scales, and a pre-test questionnaire was conducted before data was collected at several fitness centers and public places in different suburbs across Los Angeles. Women were intercepted and had to qualify through a number of screening questions. The sample size was 200 and the sample included women aged 20-40 who visited a fitness center in the last year. The sampling method employed was non-probability sampling, specifically judgment sampling, as respondents were targeted specifically based on age, gender, and approachability, and only those with an active opinion were selected.

A number of different statistical tools were used to analyze the collected respondent data. Descriptive statistics describe the sample at hand and inferential statistics, including factor analysis, Chi Square and one-way ANOVAs, enable the researcher to make inferences about the broader female fitness centre customer population.