Marketing Research paper - data analysis

Justification for Research

When thinking about human necessities, food comes to mind. At its most basic level of importance in life, food is needed to keep humans alive. Once there is food security, it is needed for an individual to be able to develop physically. Then, ideally, eating 3 meals becomes part of the everyday routine, in order to get the essential nutrients needed to maintain upkeep of one’s physical and mental health. Considering this information is why in an environment, such as a college campus, where faculty and students have to be able to keep up with the demands of their academic endeavors, there has to be a stable source of food. Having nutritious and diverse food options at reasonable prices as well as at maximum availability is vital. The George Washington University has duties to its students, although some are legally binding, the problem may lie in a failure to attend their moral obligations. There is always a need for research such as this because as a business, GW should be aware and in touch with its customers’ wants and needs. As a college, it must be constantly trying to serve the community in whatever way possible to give them a more satisfactory experience.

The GW administration has several departments that are involved with topics that intertwine the community and on campus dining. For the sake of this research project, some of these departments have already been contacted to obtain research data officially conducted by the university. Some of these departments include the Center for Student Engagement, Division of Student Affairs, and Campus Support Services. After speaking to GW administrative employees, the CSE can provide unofficial surveys that they have conducted while the CSS can provide statistical information and data that are more reliable.

        In doing this type of research, the most significant cost is that of time. As other researchers do, the time must be taken to find all the necessary information to reach the goal and make an educated recommendation. On the other hand, the benefit of doing such research is getting a more accurate representation of GW community’s actual feelings towards on campus dining.

Research Goals and Specific Objectives

        The overarching research goal is to find out GW community’s attitude as consumers towards the dining situation on campus and administration’s decisions regarding the subject matter. In trying to find a comprehensive response from the community, other broad subjects that will be researched are customers’ satisfaction of GW dining options and the different types of behaviors they display as a reaction to the available selection of eateries.

In order to reach our main research goals, there are some specific objectives related to the main problems. Firstly, the pain point of the consumers of the market will be deeply discovered. The difference between where the customers are right now and where the customers actually want is what our research concerns. Also, the satisfaction throughout time and changes of customers, how the customers choose their dining choices and the alternatives, the history and reason behind the current situation are the objectives we want to dig out. Furthermore, how aware the customers are about dining situation and how policy makers make their decisions are all controversial topics to be discussed. In the end, GW campus dining situation will be compared with off campus dining and other schools’ on campus food choices, based on all the variables listed in the analytic model.

Research Methods

Several research methods are proposed in our market research planning stage: exploratory, descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and causal research methods are all going to be applied in the project.

In terms of general view, applied and basic research will be combined to achieve our goals. Basic research provides general knowledge of the whole market, while applied research helps conduct the research with the purpose of solving the problems of GW on-campus dining options and situations.

Primary research and secondary research methods are both essential to this market research. From first-stage brainstorm and research, a couple of secondary research results are found, which will gives us a broad and basic background to start our more specific research. Most secondary researchers can reach more potential customers than we do, due to the time, money, efforts they have. There is already a starting point regarding the subject. Also, they might have better access to some exclusive resources than we do. Taking good use of secondary resources saves a lot of efforts and creates a good base for us to research more on what is missing or lacking of the existing data. The secondary sources found so far include the survey Office of Student Affair has done half year ago during spring of 2016, which will definitely be useful and relative to the research. GW Hatchet also has a few articles discussing the changes made by GW Dining system, proposals Student Associations Leaders made, and how GW on-campus dining system works and makes profit. Other sources like Niche.com, GW Today, Princeton Review ranking contain a lot of helpful information as well. After performing the secondary research, then the project will proceed with conducting primary research such as interviewing the workers, and carry out a focus group with potential customers to know their attitudes and behaviors better. Surveys will probably be used as another method by randomly selecting GW students to participate.

Exploratory methods such as data analysis, a focus group, interviews, and observations are combined in the research. For example, conducting interviews with director of campus dining, Nancy Haaga, and the leaders from Student Dining board are going to be helpful. A longitudinal survey is planned by the research to see the change in attitudes and behaviors of the customers. The combination of these research methods makes up the most comprehensive result regarding the subject matter.

Data Collection Methods

A combination of probability and non-probability sampling is in consideration for the data collection. Undoubtedly, a simple random sampling leads to the lowest level of bias in the results. However, assigning a random number to each student, randomly selecting samples, and proceeding for further analysis with the selected samples could be incredibly time consuming and tedious. Hence, a stratified random sampling might be more suitable for this research. Since, the research aims to find out students’ satisfaction towards on-campus dining choices, students living on campus would be the major subjects. Thus, given that each dorm is a strata, researchers could randomly select certain room numbers in each dorm and conduct interviews to those selected samples. Comment by Alexandra Santiago: We need to change the part about the stratified random sampling to how Rainnie and Hegi did the collection outside of Gelman

Additionally, a large sample is always good to accurately represent the entire population, so meanwhile surveying could take place in some on-campus locations such as the Marvin Center. A non-probability sampling (convenience sampling) is involved in this part of data collection as well. A questionnaire could also be sent out through email and social media such as Facebook. The idea is to collect as many data as possible and ensure a high degree of representativeness of the population.

Data Analysis

To learn about how satisfied the students are with on-campus dining options, the research would have a data analysis including Histogram, Regression Analysis, and Hypothesis Test. A Histogram gives a graphical depiction of each dorm’s rating on on-campus dining. A Regression Analysis as a measure of association would examine whether the satisfaction or dissatisfaction has a predictable pattern in relation to dining places’ price, service, atmosphere, etc. In addition, a Hypothesis Test would take a further look at the theorized impact that changes to price, service, and atmosphere have on how much students spend on on-campus dining.

Analytical Model

The key independent variable (IV) is food options. Of course, the basic reason of choosing a restaurant is whether the customers like the food or not. No one will consider a restaurant if there is nothing he or she would like to eat. Other IVs are location, hours, and price. Location is one of the most observable factors of choosing the restaurants. Colonials would not like to rush between the restaurants and classroom. Hours are mostly dependent on the owner of the restaurant, although some hours depend on the working hours of surrounding people’s schedule. Lastly, the price of food is one of the most essential variables seeing as businesses must try to find a balance because if a restaurant has expensive food it will not do well in a university area.

The key dependent variable is consumer satisfaction, which is easily affected by a variety of factors. Meanwhile, the consumers’ satisfaction is the essential reason of choosing a restaurant or not. From the restaurant perspective, their revenue almost totally depends on their work of other factors like customer satisfaction.

In preparation to study students’ attitudes towards on campus dining at GW, extensive research has been done of resources that already explore the topic. A variety of secondary data will be used including articles, case studies, academic journals, and university conducted research. These sources will provide the project a general foundation of the existing information so then the research objectives can build on and focus on the details.

The GW Dining website is one of the most official sources in relation to the dining situation and for this reason it will be used for necessary background information, such as the list of all on campus food institutions and their specific locations, meal plan policies, GWorld friendly places as well as special prices and hours. We will also use this source to learn about any new decisions and changes, for example: what new restaurants will open in the District House cafeteria.

For data specific to GW, the Center for Student Engagement will provide results of research they have conducted in order to guide the administration’s decisions. For example, the CSE performed a survey addressing food insecurity and this evidence will be useful to tell students as its result was to open the upcoming food store in District House. Furthermore, the Division of Student Affairs will provide the key outcomes of a comprehensive stakeholder engagement process that was carried out during the fall semester of 2015. This will provide an administrative perspective and how decisions regarding on campus dining were made. By having this information it will help direct our questions in the IDIs and the focus group.

For the descriptive resource, the article from GW Hatchet talked about how George Washington University was doing surveys among students and how other institutions in GWU are contributing for better dining environment since the only food provider Sodexo’s contract was set to expire in summer 2016. It does not only talk about what would happen to the new dining system but also the actions taken by university officials and student organizations trying to get student feedback before making any changes to campus dining over the summer. This article represents the starting point of this research. It demonstrated that people’s willingness to improve GWU on-campus dining system is clear and strong.

From this article we found out that GWU has done some similar survey to find out what needs to be decided in order to meet students’ requirement for campus dining. This source helps us to see the big picture of what is going on and who we might get help from as well as consider what is missing from the past survey and what areas we need to dig into. For example, this secondary resource collects students’ opinions on dining budget, on-campus and off-campus dining venues and dining habits. The research we are doing will be more from a marketing view, in terms of knowing more about what do students want, how much food and quality of life matters to college students, diversity and health issue for students, and how the new students are coping with the campus dining system right now.

Furthermore, one of the research objectives is to understand the consumer behavior of students relating to on campus dining. For this reason a source that will be used to help guide this endeavor will be a study from the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior called Factors Influencing Eating Behaviors of College Students: Dining Out vs. Eating at Home. This source will be helpful when comparing what students value the most out of aspects such as taste, nutrition, price, variety, etc. Another source related to the consumer behavior objective is The Analysis of Variable Predicting Eating Habits of University Students. The analysis will be used to better understand how certain variables like life satisfaction and social emotional loneliness, can develop in students’ lives. It will help when asking the students if they have ever experienced these things and if they saw it affect their eating.

Moreover, how affordable the meals provided in the school cafeteria are, certainly has a considerable impact on students’ attitude towards on campus dining experience. The reality is that to some students, what the school’s mandatory meal plan supplies them is going hungry or suffering the steep prices. Although many students are finding breakfast and the grill bar in J Street are too overpriced, the reason behind could go beyond pricing. An article from GW Hatchet Junior focuses executive vice presidential campaign on dining, counseling guides us to identify a key aspect leading to dissatisfaction of campus dining experience; J Street having students pay by the weight of food may make some students often times over budget easily without getting full or nourished. The source includes detailed discussion on the unfairness of this paying system and actions the school could impose to improve the situation.

Also from GW Hatchet, Students petition for more inclusion in campus dining policies, choices tells us why natural ingredients may not explain the steep prices in J Street. The Progressive Student Union, known as PSU, aims to collect students’ signatures to call on the school to enact the Real Food Challenge. The source helps us see the students’ increasing desire of a more fair, healthy, and green dining system. It is a consensus that the school is expected to add promoting sustainability to its on campus dining objectives. Despite pricing, lack of healthy, organic, farm-to-table choices now seems to play a greater role of making student unsatisfied with the school’s dining system and urging them to go for off-campus options.

Similarly, The Food Services and Student Life: A Business Anthropological Case Study and USA Today article “Does the quality of college food affect student happiness” contain additional research and concerns about how the quality of on-campus food is related to the quality of life and studying of college students. Which connects to the original driver and inspiration of the research project. This secondary resource serves the research project as a reminder and strong reason behind.

When discussing the role of food in college and its importance health wise, a source that will be used is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, specifically its section called College Health and Safety. The section presents some of the pressures and challenges that students endure like getting enough sleep and stress as well as how important eating well is during this time. Factors such as these will be discussed when addressing how students cope with them and their effects on students’ eating habits and preferences. These questions need to be asked in order to see if the university is meeting those needs. Another source is a study called Obesity and the College Dining Commons, which delves into the implications that obligatory meal plans bring and addresses their effects on students such as weight and Body Mass Index. The study will be useful when examining how students feel about the past and current GW meal plans.

A source relating to obtaining information on students’ opinions is Niche.com, which records millions of college reviews. In fact, there are lots of similar websites now, but Niche provides the dining review from the Colonials and  GW faculty. It seems that the academic ranking is not the only factor for deciding which college students will attend. The quality of campus life has gained more value. Eating is one factor which cannot be ignored, that is why good and accessible food is a vital element of campus life as it affects students more seriously. We will use some public opinions of the dining situation from this website and we will disregard baseless comments, both positive or negative. We will collect the data and give out an average attitude from students. Also, we will pay detailed attention to the reasons why students left the comments.

Pre-focus group IDI

In order to know what the GW Dining Department went through to make the new changes and find out how they took students’ input into consideration, Nancy Haaga, the managing director of Campus Support Services, was contacted. She explained how GW obtained their new provider, Restaurant Associates, and the reasons behind the new changes. She stated that a stakeholder engagement process was done and as a result of that research conducted by an independent firm, GW found that key concerns for students were variety, convenience, nutrition and affordability. Feedback from the faculty was also obtained and they expressed their concern about sense of community around the dining program. The process for getting RA included creating a committee of faculty and students and conducting a request for proposal. After getting the proposals this committee would do on-site visits, invite bidders to do on-campus presentations, review proposals, and in the end take a unanimous vote.

With the information from the school’s officials, further information was discovered throughout the interview with the president of Student Association, Erika Feinman, who was involved in a lot of proposals on the decision making for our dining program changes. During her interview, she provided more information about how Student Association collected students’ opinions, how she and Thomas (the Executive Vice President) advocated for what’s good for students and her opinion about GW on-campus dining from her perspective as the president. She stated that GW is a unique campus with special dining options. The new incoming Restaurant Association is bringing tastier, healthier and local food rather than pricy Sodexo Group from before. She said in order to reduce the food insecurity students experienced with the old plan, the new plan was missing some flexibility. In order to prevent it, Thomas and her worked on improving the Gworld Plan and the variable choices including Kosher and Halal meal options. From her point of view, she saw how the administrators are trying to make on-campus dining exciting, enjoyable and affordable and believed that GW could do a better job to offer more diverse food options.

Interested in how the Residence Hall Association’s (RHA) involvement with GW Dining is, we interviewed the President of RHA, Aliyah Belinkie. She stated that RHA’s role is to advocate for affordable food options on-campus. They also help determine the dining vendors within the halls (Shenkman and District House) and the Dining Dollars that on-campus students receive as part of their residential tuition. When monitoring student satisfaction through surveys, student feedback via email and social media, general word on the street among students, Residential Hall Association has noticed increasing student unhappiness with the previous GWorld money system. According to Belinkie, the former RHA President, Mike Massaroli, was on the RFP committee for new GW Dining vendors. The committee has been preparing for the changes to GW Dining including Dining Plan for about a year.

When asked about the future of J Street and the cafe on the first floor of Duques, Aliyah Belinkie said because Marvin Center and Duques Hall are not residential buildings, RHA has no part in these aspects and cannot provide much information. However, Belinkie pointed out that the changes in Shenkman will definitely improve student satisfaction because the area is more welcoming and comfortable now. The new furniture and layout are more conducive to studying and eating. While helping with the food selection for District House dining, RHA values affordability, nutrition, and variety the most. Also, Belinkie emphasized that the needs of all students are taken to account when accessing RFP submissions.

Lastly, she mentioned that the delayed grand opening of District House is because the restaurants have not yet received their building permits from the District of Columbia as of the beginning of the school year. They will be opening as soon as they receive their permits and are able to complete the building.

During the interview before, diversity was mentioned repeatedly. So we interviewed the vice president of International Student Community (ISC), Yi, who is also former president of Chinese Students and Scholars Association. She mentioned that, most of international students she has touched cannot completely accept the foods on campus. Some of them would like to walk 4 more blocks for Chinese or Japanese restaurants, and cook at home after they move to the dorm with kitchens. She said that to close J street and let students consume dining cash in other food institutions on campus is a smart decision; the members in isc expressed that they will never need to stand unhealthy and bad taste foods in J street any more! For the future changing, Yi said that school should apply more restaurants which carry hot dishes.

Focus Group Report

We conducted our focus group with eight people from very diverse background. Everyone has their own habits and opinions about eating and on-campus food. In general, some students are currently dissatisfied with the dining options on campus, while some became indifferent because they have other more important things to think about. One of the most vital factor is the affordability of the food options. There are only a few cafeterias that are reasonably priced and fast to get around GW. When students have enough time, they would like to pay more for nicer food and dining environment. However, during weekday when they rush from one class to another, what students need is any kind of filling food without waiting.

What surprised us is that 100% students in focus group don’t eat breakfast, even though they all know skipping breakfast is bad for health, which is not expected by us. In this case, we supposed that if there are more fast breakfast on campus like GW Deli, students may purchase breakfast on the way to class. As we mentioned above, location seems important when the students rush from one class to another one. Resonated with what Ms. Haaga said, variety, convenience and affordability, one student brought up the key concern faculty expressed about lack of community caused by the lack of cafeteria. However, when the students talk about the cafeteria, what they care is the affordability and convenience.

Some common opinions are agreed among the focus group. Two students mentioned that it’s hard to find something to eat at late night because most of the food institutions on campus will close before 11pm. Most college students stay up late to study or have fun. The “Carvings” deli that opens until 2am has been the only choice for them when they feel hungry in late evening. It made some students’ memorable dining moments when they started talking about late night eating. Most of students have experience of living in Thurston, and they unanimously agree that there is nothing to eat around Thurston.

We also found out that students would rather eat off-campus or cook by themselves. Among our focus group, Asian girls like to cook home. The reason behind is that domestic students can still accept the food even though they do not like it. Conversely, some international students rather cook at home maybe because the foods around here are not acceptable for them.

To sum above, when the students are busy studying, they do not want to spend too much time on eating, they just need something to keep them from starving. Also, the current dining choices on campus are expensive and unattractive for students. Resonated with the secondary data we found, many students said that their eating schedules are affected by classes and stress and that most of them find themselves skipping meals often primarily breakfast.

After all, we prepare an important section in our focus group meeting did not reach our expectations at all. When we asked about their ideal dining program, they only showed their priority of convenience and disappointment about current dining environment, which we expected. However, we wished we could heard something more than that. According to our secondary research, students do have some nice ideas about improving dining policy. We will pay more attention on this point in following research when we face a bigger group of representatives sample.

After focus group IDI

The focus group has seen mostly negative attitudes towards the Meal Plan and how the school distinguished dining dollars from colonial cash to require a certain amount of on-campus dining spending. The school has decided to launch a new Dining Cash plan to replace the original Meal Plan. While interviewing Nacy Haaga, the managing director of campus support services, we were informed how Student Association is involved in the on-campus dining innovation. Casey Syron, the former President of Student Association, stated that advocating for affordable, healthy and sustainable food options was the motivation for the transition to the flexible plan. Student Association began advocating for this in April 2015.

Not only the bad taste but also the pay-by-weight system in J Street lead to student dissatisfaction of the school cafeteria. According to Casey Syron, J Street will not offer a conventional food option in the future; however, there will be a small stop-and-go style food & coffee bar, similar to Panera. Also, J Street should serve as a collaborative study and lounge area for students and student organizations. All food spaces -- J Street, Marvin Catering, Pelham, Vern Catering, VSTC, and others -- were selected by the RFP committee, which had a number of student reps. He also mentioned that the updated spaces in Marvin and Ivory create student space by establishing further space on campus for studying, lounging, collaboration, and student org meetings and events. These new settings create spaces for the community to develop and improve social opportunities for low-income students.

Since the District House dining area remains closed, the students in focus group reflected a lack of knowledge about who the vendors are and what will be offered there. However, the students do show great expectations of new dining options. The delayed opening is due to setbacks with construction, Casey Syron explained, District House dining options were finalized by the same RFP committee that reviewed options for dining. The students and staff on the committee advocated for affordable health sustainable options for students. Pricing which the majority of students in our focus group concern about is decided by the vendors when they submit proposals, which are ultimately approved by Division of Operations. Student Association advocated for meals under $8.00 consisting of a main dish, side, and drink, which match what John Ralls mentioned about the new program — Meals Deals. Representing students, SA was involved in vendor selection and considered affordability over nutrition, variety and taste as the number one factor when evaluating proposals. Syron added that they also ensured all vendors offered healthy and sustainable food options. Students should expect a majority of the vendors providing well-rounded variety and taste options with fair prices.

A student in our focus group recalled his experience of having a meal at West Hall’s new cafeteria this semester and said that he was impressed by the Malaysian and Indian food being sold there. GW is a highly diverse community, thus meeting the needs of international students has been a key aspect regarding on-campus dining innovation. As pointed out by Syron, SA met with a number of international student organizations and individuals to ensure their voice was represented during the review process. The SA advocated for healthy options for international students, as studies show that international students in the U.S. experience increased levels of blood glucose and blood pressure, as well as increased consumption of high caloric food.

Also, to know more detail about students eating habit, we also interviewed Miracle, who is vice president of Chinese Culture Association (CCA). When we asked about the situation of students’ breakfast, she said it is common to skip breakfast because they tend to eat late. She said if there is a nice breakfast joint on the way to campus, most of members in CCA would like to wake up earlier for nice breakfast. And she prefer to cook by herself and welcome her friends come and eat with her. We also ask her that why students in focus group do not have idea about dining plan; “juniors have lived here for 2 years, they have already found the best way to deal with meals for them. Of course they do not care about school’s dining plan, because they can eat well without dining plan.” she said, “I mean, no dining plan is the best dining plan.”

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