From the Survey to Hypothesis in Establishing Cafeteria on Campus - Research Paper Example

IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO ESTABLISH A CAFETERIA IN CAMPUS? Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 List of figures 3 List of tables 4Introduction 5 Data and Research Methods 6 Findings 7 Conclusion and Recommendations 14 References 15 Appendix 16 Two sample t-test table for the mean results 16 Regression results 16 List of figures Figure 1: Gender 7 Figure 2: Age of the respondents 8 Figure 3: Type of food eaten by the respondents 9 Figure 4: Yes or no to cafeteria in the campus 9 List of tables Table 1: Making an inference about the mean of one group – (one-tail) T-test. 10 Table 2: Making an inference about the proportions within one group – (Upper-tail) Z-test. 11 Table 3: Comparing the means of two independent groups – (two-tail) T-test. 12 Table 4: Comparing the means of two independent groups – (two-tail) T-test. 13 Table 5: Two sample t-test for the mean 16 Table 6: Regression output 17 Introduction Most university students prefer to have something to eat near them during school days. This is because their bodies are actively growing and they might feel hungry over time. Due to this, most students prefer to enrol in the universities where there is access to foodstuffs (Kokker 2002, p. 17). This research was done to seek the opinion of the students towards coming up with a cafeteria in the campus (Thomashow 2014, p. 8). The research was also expected to answer the questions of the kind of foodstuffs that need to be sold by the cafeteria. The case of having a cafeteria in campus is interesting to study since it determines the number of students that want to join the campus with a cafeteria (Trutna 2011, p. 29). “The retention of the student in campus is also assured by the presence of cafeteria”, Trutna (2011), adds. The study will help the management to make an informed decision of coming up with a cafeteria and the types of food that the cafeteria should be selling (Malone, 2010). The research questions are; RQ 1: is it a good idea to come up with a cafeteria in the campus? RQ 2: is the average number of people who were interested in having a cafeteria in the campus the same as the average number of people who were not? RQ 3: Does the number of people that eat while still in campus differ from the number of people who are interested in having a cafeteria in the campus. RQ 4: What type of food stuffs should the cafeteria be selling? RQ 5: Is there any linear relationship between the respondents who are for the idea of establishment of a cafeteria in the campus and their budgets? From the above research questions the following hypotheses were developed. H1: It is a good idea to establish a cafeteria in the campus. H2: The average number of people who were interested in having a cafeteria in the campus is not the same as the average number of people who were not. H3: The number of people that eat while still in campus is equal to the number of people who are interested in having a cafeteria in the campus. H4: Only sweets should be sold in the cafeteria. H5: There is no linear relationship between the respondents who are for the idea of establishment of a cafeteria in the campus and their budgets. Data and Research Methods For the above research hypotheses to be tested, a random sample of fifty students was drawn from the enrolment registers across years. Every student had an equal chance of being included in the sample regardless of their year of entry, gender and course. Then some students were used as research assistants to move around distributing the questionnaires at different times of the day. This was to ensure that the selected respondents have been reached bearing in mind their different class hours. The respondents were given like five minutes to respond to the questions. The questionnaires were then collected and subjected to data cleaning. Out of the fifty questionnaires only forty were fully responded to and the researcher disregarded the incomplete questionnaires. This is a response rate of 80% which the researcher is contented with (Babbie 2011, p. 61). The age bracket of the students was from 18 to 27 years. This captured those students who reside in the campus. Data collected included both qualitative and quantitative variables. The descriptive data collected included age and gender. Majority of the questions in the questionnaire were close ended where the respondents were supposed to tick their responses against a predefined response (Babbie 2011, p. 58). Only two questions were open ended. They were about the type of food the respondent take. The other question was seeking the respondent’s suggestions that would help in developing the idea of need for cafeteria in campus (Senechal 2005, p. 28). The questionnaire required the respondents to state whether they eat while in campus and tick appropriately. They were also supposed to select the amount of money they spend per mean in £ from three choices of (3-5) £ coded as 1, (6-8) £ coded as 2 and (9-11) £ per day which was coded as 3. The respondent’s monthly budgets were also required. The respondent was supposed to choose one from the five categories provided. These categories were below 800 £, between 800-1000 £, 1000-1200 £, 1200-1400 £ and above 1400 £. The time of the day that the respondents have their meal was also captured. The respondents was supposed to select one category from the four provided. These were during 0900-1200hrs, 1200-1500hrs, 1500-1800hrs and 1800 -2100hrs. The question of whether the student has some interest in having a cafeteria in the campus was also raised. The respondent was supposed to tick against either “yes” or “no”. Analysis of the data required the data to be coded with numbers 1,2,3,4 and 5 appropriately (Babbie, 2011). Findings Descriptive characteristics of the data. Gender. Both genders were equally represented with 50% of the respondents each as depicted in the chart below; Figure 1: Gender Age of the respondents. Figure 2: Age of the respondents Concerning the age of the respondents, majority were aged between 21 and 23 years (38%). 37% of the respondents were aged between 18 and 20 years. The other group of 24 to 27 years constituted 25% of the population. Type of food eaten by the respondents Figure 3: Type of food eaten by the respondents From the above table, majority of the respondents (55%) reported to take Chinese Cuisines for their meals. 25% admitted to take fast food for their meals. Those who used to take pizzas and sweets for their meals were 10% of the respondents for each type each. Hypotheses testing and findings. A one tailed t-test was performed to test the hypothesis. Below are the results; Figure 4: Yes or no to cafeteria in the campus The above chart shows that the number of respondents who would like a cafeteria were 87.5% while those who do not like to have a cafeteria in the campus was 12.5%. This implies that majority prefer a cafeteria in the campus. To be clear on this difference, one sample t-test results are displayed below (Babbie, 2011). Making an inference about the mean of one group – (one-tail) T-test. Hypothesis 1 The first hypothesis was stated as follows; Null hypothesis (H0): The average number of people who were interested in having a cafeteria in the campus is the same as the average number of people who were not. Alternative hypothesis (H1): The average number of people who were interested in having a cafeteria in the campus is greater than the average number of people who were not. Hypothesis1 Data Null Hypothesis = 1 Level of Significance 0.05 Sample Size 40 Sample Mean 2 Sample Standard Deviation 0.322 Intermediate Calculations Standard Error of the Mean 0.05091267 Degrees of Freedom 39 t Test Statistic 2.02269092 Lower-Tail Test   Lower Critical Value 2.02269092 p-Value 0.025 Reject the null hypothesis Table 1: Making an inference about the mean of one group – (one-tail) T-test. From the above table it can be deduced that the p-value of the t-test is less than 0.05 (p-value = 0.025). Therefore, we reject the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the respondents who need that cafeteria in the campus and those who do not and accept the alternative hypothesis. This result is arrived at with 95% confidence level (Babbie, 2011). This implies that the average number of respondents who are interested in having a cafeteria in the campus is greater than the average number of those who are not interested. Making an inference about the proportions within one group – (Upper-tail) Z-test. Hypothesis 2 Null hypothesis (H0): The proportion of people who were interested in having a cafeteria in the campus is the same as the proportion of people who were not. Alternative hypothesis (H1): The proportion of people who were interested in having a cafeteria in the campus is greater than the proportion of people who were not. Data   Sample Size 40 Number of Successes 35 Confidence Level 95% Intermediate Calculations Sample Proportion 0.875 Z Value -1.95996398 Standard Error of the Proportion 0.052291252 P-value 0.001     Confidence Interval Interval Lower Limit 0.77251103 Interval Upper Limit 0.97748897 Table 2: Making an inference about the proportions within one group – (Upper-tail) Z-test. As shown in the above table, the p-value is less than 0.05 (p-value = 0.001) and therefore, at 0.05 significance level, we fail to reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis that the proportion of those who are interested in the building of a cafeteria is greater than that of those who are not interested. Comparing the means of two independent groups – (two-tail) T-test. Hypothesis 3 Null hypothesis (H0): The number of people that eat while still in campus equal to the number of people who are interested in having a cafeteria in the campus, i.e. the differences between the means is zero. Alternative hypothesis (H1): The number of people that eat while in campus is different from the number of people that are interested in having a cafeteria in the campus. Data Hypothesized Difference 0 Level of Significance 0.05 Interested in campus cafeteria Number of Items of Interest 35 Sample Size 40 Eat during university day Number of Items of Interest 38 Sample Size 40 Test Result t-Test Statistic 6.5767 p-Value 0.0000 Reject the null hypothesis Table 3: Comparing the means of two independent groups – (two-tail) T-test. The above table shows that the p-value for comparing the two means is less than 0.05. We therefore conclude by rejecting the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the means of the number of respondents who are interested in having a cafeteria in the campus and the ones that eat while in campus and accept the alternative hypothesis. It says that there is a difference between the two means (Svirbel, 2007). Comparing the variances of two independent groups – (Upper-tail) F-Test. Hypothesis 4 Null hypothesis (H0): The variability of people who eat fast food as their meal is equal to the variability of people who are interested in having a cafeteria in the campus. Alternative hypothesis (H1): The variability of people who eat fast food as their meal is greater than the variability of people who are interested in having a cafeteria in the campus. F-Test Data Level of Significance 0.05 Larger-Variance Sample Sample Size 40 Sample Variance 0.121 Smaller-Variance Sample Sample Size 40 Sample Variance 0.224 Intermediate Calculations F Test Statistic 4.0202 Population 1 Sample Degrees of Freedom 39 Population 2 Sample Degrees of Freedom 39   Upper-Tail Test Upper Critical Value 5.331 p-Value 0.575 Do not reject the null hypothesis Table 4: Comparing the means of two independent groups – (two-tail) T-test. The above table shows an F-test that was used to explain whether there is any difference between the variability of the people that used to eat fast food for their meals and the ones that were interested in having a cafeteria in the campus (Svirbel, 2007). It was found that the p-value was higher than 0.05 (p-value = 0.575). This was evident enough to fail to reject the null hypotheses and conclude that there is no difference in variability between the groups. Assessing the presence of linear relationship between the respondents who are for the idea of establishment of a cafeteria in the campus and their budgets. Hypothesis 5 Null hypothesis (H0): There is no linear relationship between the respondents who are for the idea of establishment of a cafeteria in the campus and their budgets. Alternative hypothesis (H1): There is a linear relationship between the respondents who are for the idea of establishment of a cafeteria in the campus and their budgets. In order to test the above hypotheses, a simple linear regression is run with budget as the independent variable and the interest for establishment of a cafeteria as the dependent variable. The regression results in Table 6 in the appendix reveals that the overall model is significant since the p-value is less than 0.05 (p-value = 0.000). The R-square value is 0.368 showing that more than 36% of the variations in the need for the cafeteria can be explained by the budgets of the student. The t-statistic for the budget’s coefficient is positive (0.921) and significant at 5% significance level (p-value = 0.000). This means that the null hypothesis is rejected. Therefore we conclude that there is a linear relationship between the need for cafeteria and the student’s budget. The coefficient indicates that increase in the student’s budget from one bracket to another increases the possibility of the student’s interest in the cafeteria by 0.921. The constant term is not significant (p-value = 0.456) showing that need for cafeteria is driven by other factors. Conclusion and Recommendations The paper sought to get the opinion of the students regarding coming up with a cafeteria in the campus. A simple random sample was drawn from the students’ population and the respondents were issued with questionnaires to fill in. Data from forty students showed that the students were for the opinion of coming up with the cafeteria. It further revealed that most of the students in the campus who used to eat during the university day are the ones for that opinion. According to the study the most preferred food is the Chinese cuisines and fast food. This shows that the types of food that the cafeteria should have on the menus is the Chinese cuisines and fast food due to their large number of consumers. References BABBIE, E. R. 2011. The basics of social research. Australia, Wadsworth / Cengage Learning. KOKKER, Steve. 2002. Québec. Melbourne: Lonely Planet. . New York, Sage Inc. MALONE, M. S. 2010. The Everything College Survival Book From Social Life To Study Skills--all You Need To Fit Right In. Cincinnati, F+W Media. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=790509. SENECHAL, D. 2005. The Business School Buzz Book. New York, N.Y., Vault, Inc. SVIRBEL, E. 2007. Action Research: The Description and Analysis of the Implementation Process of a Teacher-initiated Character Education Program in an Elementary School. New York, ProQuest, Inc. THOMASHOW, Mitchell. 2014. The Nine Elements of a Sustainable Campus. Available at: https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0262027119. [Accessed: 13th December 2011] TRUTNA, K. 2011. Improving Student Retention: The Role of the Cafeteria. [Online]. Ijournal page. Available from: http://www.staffs.ac.uk/assets/harvard_quick_guide_tcm44-47797.pdf [Accessed: 13th December 2011]. Appendix Two sample t-test table for the mean results Regression results SUMMARY OUTPUT                     Regression Statistics           Multiple R 0.607         R Square 0.368         Adjusted R Square 0.352         Standard Error 0.270         Observations 40                     ANOVA             df SS MS F Significance F Regression 1 1.6118 1.6118 22.1667 0.0000 Residual 38 2.7632 0.0727     Total 39 4.375                     Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-value Lower 95% Intercept 0.158 0.210 0.753 0.456 -0.267 Budget 0.921 0.196 4.708 0.000 0.525 Table 6: Regression output Read More