Discussing the Idea of Canteen in University Campus - Research Paper Example

IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO ESTABLISH A CAFETERIA IN CAMPUS? Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 5 Data and research methods 6 Findings 6 Descriptive statistics 6 Tests of hypotheses 14 Conclusion 19 References 20 Appendix 21 Scatter plot (Y-axis: Amount spent, X-axis: Monthly income) 21 TukeyKramer table for difference between means. 22 List of figures Figure 1: Gender 7 Figure 2: Level of study 7 Figure 3: Do you have a place to socialize? 11 Figure 4: Need for a space to socialize 12 Figure 5: Choose 3 cuisines you would like to see in the canteen 13 Figure 6: Scatter plot for linear relationship between variables 21 List of tables Table 1: Gender 7 Table 2: Level of study 8 Table 3: Hours spent at university per day 8 Table 4: Number of times of food consumption in a day 9 Table 5: Money spent on food per day 10 Table 6: Monthly income 11 Table 7: Place to socialize 12 Table 8: Space to socialize 12 Table 9: Choose 3 cuisines you would like to see in the canteen 13 Table 10: t-test for hypothesis of the mean 15 Table 11: F-test for differences in two variances 16 Table 12: One-way ANOVA 17 Table 13: Simple linear regression 18 Table 14: TukeyKramer (post-hoc ANOVA) 22 Introduction A number of university campuses have canteens within the campus (Senechal 2005). However, little studies have been done to assess whether the canteen is really required or not. This paper aims at assessing the idea of having a canteen in a university campus. It seeks to answer the question of whether having a canteen in campus is a good or even the best thing to do. The study goes ahead to identify the type of food that would be required should the canteen be established. It is the role of the management to identify what should be put in the canteen depending on the survey that results for students’ requirements (Thomashow 2014). The study is helpful in generating the information that is required in making a decision of whether to establish a canteen in the campus or not (Trutna 2011). The overall research objectives were; 1. To assess whether the number of students who had a place to socialize in campus is the same as the average number of people who do not have. 2. To investigate the difference between the variability of those people who had a place to socialize and those who did not have a place but they needed one. 3. To identify if there is a difference between any of the three choices of cuisines that the students made. 4. To examine whether there is a linear relationship between the amount of food spent by a student for food in a day and their monthly income. To achieve the set objectives, the following hypotheses have been stated for testing later in the study; H 1: The average number of students who had a place to socialize in campus is higher than the average number of people who do not have. H 2: The variability of those people who had a place to socialize is greater than that of those who did not have a place but they needed one. H 3: The three choices of cuisines that the students made are different. H 4: There is a linear relationship between the amount of money spent for food in a day by a student and their monthly income. Data and research methods In order to test the stated hypotheses, data was collected from a representative sample in the campus (Babbie 2011). A sample was drawn using simple random sampling. In this, a sample of 100 students was chosen which comprised of equal number of male and female students. Questionnaires that had 10 questions were given to them by hand since it was easier to walk around and get them. They were given a day to respond to the questionnaires which were later taken for analysis. Only three respondents failed to return their questionnaires meaning that the response rate was 97% which was acceptable (Malone 2010). The questions were both open ended and closed with majority of them being closed to ease the analysis (Kokker 2002). Data analysis was done using PHstat, an MS Excel add-in. Some of the variables that were captured in the questionnaires were the respondents’ age, gender, levels of monthly income, number of times that a student consumed food in a day among others. Findings Descriptive statistics Gender Figure 1: Gender GENDER Total Percentage FEMALE 31 50.00% MALE 31 50.00% Table 1: Gender The above analysis shows that both genders were equally represented at 50% of the respondents each. However, all the respondents had the same age of 21 years. Level of study Figure 2: Level of study LEVEL OF STUDY Total Percentage postgraduate 21 21.65% Undergraduate 76 78.35% Table 2: Level of study The above table indicates that out of the 97 respondents, those who were at their undergraduate level of study were the majority with 78.35% while the ones at their postgraduate level were only 21.65%. Number of hours spent at the university in a day Table 3: Hours spent at university per day The above table shows that the average number of hours spent in a day by a student is 4.43 hours with a standard deviation of 1.57. Most of the students reported to be spending 5 hours in the university per day. The most number of hours spent is 7 hours while the minimum time is one hour. The number of times that food is consumed in a day Table 4: Number of times of food consumption in a day The students were also supposed to indicate the number of times they consume food in a day. The average number of times that was reported was 2.8 which is close to three times. This average had a standard deviation of 0.9 which is close to 2 times. The maximum number of times that food was consumed by a student was 4 times while the minimum was 1 time. The above table also indicates that most of the students consumed food three times a day. Amount of money spent on food in a day Table 5: Money spent on food per day The above table shows that the average amount of money that is spent on food in a day by a student is £10.6. Most of the students reported to consume £10 in a day for food. The minimum amount was £0 showing that some students do not spend any money on food. Those who reported to spend the highest amount of money said that they consumed £40 in a day. Monthly income of the students Table 6: Monthly income The respondents also responded to the question of the amount of income they earn per day as per the above table. The average income of the student was £555.2 with a standard deviation of £847.0. The income seemed to have no mode showing that the monthly incomes of the students was distinct for each student. The highest monthly income was £6000. Do you have a place to socialize and relax while in campus? Figure 3: Do you have a place to socialize? Table 7: Place to socialize At least 70% of the students admitted that they have a place to relax and socialize while in campus. However about 30% said that they do not have such a place. This made the researcher to ask them another question of whether they need such a place and they responded as follows; Figure 4: Need for a space to socialize Need a place Total Percentage no 4 13.79% yes 25 86.21% Table 8: Space to socialize Out of the 29 students who said that they don’t have place to relax more than 86% admitted that they need such a place. Only 13.8% were not in need of a place to socialize. This is a very small number compared to the whole sample size of 97 students thus, such a place is important. Three cuisines that the student would like to see in the canteen. Figure 5: Choose 3 cuisines you would like to see in the canteen Table 9: Choose 3 cuisines you would like to see in the canteen The students showed that they are highly interested in seeing Italian cuisine in the campus canteen. This is because the Italian cuisine had a score of 21.38%. It was selected by 62 students out of the 97 students. This is 63.9% of the students which is high enough. The second meal of interest was the Chinese cuisine with a score of 14%. Turkish and Mexican cuisines had a score of 12.4% and 12.1% respectively. The other cuisines had scored less than 10%. This shows that the Italian cuisine is the most preferred. Tests of hypotheses Testing the difference between means (one sample t-test). Hypothesis 1 Null Hypothesis (H0): The average number of students who had a place to socialize in campus is the same as the average number of people who do not have. Alternative Hypothesis (H1): The average number of students who had a place to socialize in campus is higher than the average number of people who do not have. To test the above hypotheses, a tow-tailed t-test was performed and it gave the following results with the level of significance being set at 5%. t Test for Hypothesis of the Mean Data Null Hypothesis = 0 Level of Significance 0.05 Sample Size 97 Sample Mean 1.298969072 Sample Standard Deviation 0.460184484 Intermediate Calculations Standard Error of the Mean 0.0467 Degrees of Freedom 96 t Test Statistic 27.8005 Two-Tail Test   Lower Critical Value -1.9850 Upper Critical Value 1.9850 p-Value 0.0000 Reject the null hypothesis   Table 10: t-test for hypothesis of the mean According to the results above, the p-value is less than 0.05 and therefore we should reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a significant difference between the average number of students who have a place to socialize in campus and the average number of people who do not have. Thus, since those who have a place to socialize are more than those who do not have then majority of the students have a place to socialize. Comparing the variances of two independent groups – (Upper-tail) F-Test Hypothesis 2 Null Hypothesis (H0): The variability of those people who had a place to socialize is not different from that of those who did not have a place but they needed one. Alternative Hypothesis (H1): The variability of those people who had a place to socialize is greater than that of those who did not have a place but they needed one. To test the above hypotheses, an upper-tail F-test performed and it gave the following results with the level of significance being set at 5%. F-Test for Differences in Two Variances Data Level of Significance 0.05 Larger-Variance Sample   Sample Size 97 Sample Variance 0.211769759 Smaller-Variance Sample   Sample Size 29 Sample Variance 0.123152709 Intermediate Calculations F Test Statistic 1.7196 Population 1 Sample Degrees of Freedom 96 Population 2 Sample Degrees of Freedom 28     Upper-Tail Test   Upper Critical Value 1.7280 p-Value 0.0515 Do not reject the null hypothesis   Table 11: F-test for differences in two variances According to the above analysis, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected since the variability in the two samples is the same. This is depicted by the p-value that is higher than the significance level. The F-statistic is also less than the upper critical value meaning that the two samples had the same variability (Babbie 2011). This implies that the variability of the students who had a place to socialize in campus is the same as the variability of the ones who did not have a place to socialize and they needed one. This shows that there is need for a canteen in the campus that would provide a place to relax and socialize for the group that did not have. Comparing more than two groups (One-way ANOVA) Hypotheses 3 Null Hypothesis (H0): There is no difference between any three choices of cuisines that the students made. Alternative Hypothesis (H1): The three choices of cuisines that the students made are different. The above hypothesis was tested using a one-way ANOVA test that revealed the following; Table 12: One-way ANOVA The above table shows that the F-statistic is small and insignificant since the p-value is greater than 0.05. This means that the null hypothesis cannot be rejected at 95% confidence level. Therefore, the choices given by the students were not ranked in the order of preference. This is because the list was predefined and the order for every response was the same. The TukeyKramer table in the appendix provides a further post-hoc analysis of the difference in the means to confirm the above findings (Svirbel 2007). Analysing the relationship between two variables (Simple linear regression) Hypothesis 4 Null Hypothesis (H0): There is no linear relationship between the amount of money spent for food in a day by a student and their monthly income. Alternative Hypothesis (H1): There is a linear relationship between the amount of money spent for food in a day by a student and their monthly income. The above hypothesis was tested by the use of a simple linear regression with the amount of money spent for food being the dependent variable and the monthly income as the independent variable. Below are the regression results. Table 13: Simple linear regression From the above table, the R square value is 0.17 meaning that 17% of the variations in the amount of money spent by a student for food are explained by the variations in his or her monthly income. The overall significance of the model is shown by the value of F-statistic (19.3). This value is significant at 95% confidence level (p-value = 0.0000, < 0.05) implying that the regression model is significant in explaining the relationship between the amount of money spent of food and the monthly income. Both coefficients of the model are significant at 0.05 significance level. The intercept is 8.6 meaning that even the student who does not have income will spend about £8.6. This is logically true. An increase in the monthly income by one unit will make the student to increase the amount of money spent on food by £0.0036. This is shown by the positive coefficient of monthly income. These results show that there exists a positive linear relationship between amount of money spent on food and the student’s monthly income. A scatter plot of the relationship is provided in the appendix. Conclusion The study sought to examine the need for a canteen in the campus. From the data collected from 97 students using questionnaires the study was able to achieve all its objectives. The study found that the students really need a canteen in the campus. The percentage of the students who need to have a socializing place was high indicating that they need a canteen. Many students reported that they consume food more than once in a day. Presence of a canteen would help them have the foodstuffs they require. Thomashow (2014, p.44) also confirmed that, “a place that a student can get foodstuffs should be made available in campus to cater for students demands”. The study also noted that the students will require the Italian cuisine more than any other type food. Chinese cuisine and the Mexican cuisine are also in significantly high demand. The study concludes that there is need for a canteen in campus. (Kokker 2002) (Malone 2010) (Senechal 2005) (Svirbel 2007) (Trutna 2011) References Babbie, E. 2011, The Basics of Social Research, Australia, Wadsworth / Cengage Learning. Kokker, S. 2002. Québec. Melbourne: Lonely Planet. Sage Inc, New York. 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. ProQuest, Inc, New York. 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 Scatter plot (Y-axis: Amount spent, X-axis: Monthly income) Figure 6: Scatter plot for linear relationship between variables TukeyKramer table for difference between means. Table 14: TukeyKramer (post-hoc ANOVA) Read More