International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Science

Volume 3, Issue 11, pp. 54-58, 2019. ISSN (Online): 2456-7361

An Empirical Study on University Canteen

Satisfaction Survey-A Case Study of Jiangsu
University
Huang Wenjing
School of Finance and Economics, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, People’s Republic of China

Abstract—The Canteen of university is an important guarantee for the smooth development of teaching and scientific research. It concerns the
immediate interests of students and the harmony and stability of universities and society. It has attracted widespread attention from all sides.
This paper takes the canteen of Jiangsu University as an example, uses the data obtained from the questionnaire survey, and uses SPSS22.0
software to perform descriptive statistical analysis, factor analysis and regression analysis to evaluate the student's satisfaction with the
canteen. The results show that students are generally satisfied with the canteen. The main factors that affect the satisfaction of the canteen are
product quality, service quality, and canteen hardware. Finally, based on the conclusions of the analysis, some suggestions were made to
improve the canteen work.

Keywords—University Canteen, Customer Satisfaction, Factor Analysis, Regression Analysis.

and has practical significance for the university logistics

I. INTRODUCTION department to better manage the canteen.
Canteen is an important part of the logistics of universities. It
provides catering services for university students to ensure II. LITERATURE REVIEW
their healthy growth. The management of university canteen Cardozo (1965) was the first person to combine customer
naturally becomes the top priority in the logistics satisfaction with marketing, and his idea caused a lot of
management. The vast majority of students live on campus, discussion in the theoretical world. Howard (1969) put
and their daily consumption in the canteen has become the forward that customer satisfaction is a kind of inner feeling
most common consumption in their lives. Many studies have that customers think of the value of buying a certain product.
shown that the main consumption of students is dietary, and The benefits brought by buying a product are directly
the vast majority of dietary consumption occurs in university proportional to the price they pay.
canteen. In recent years, due to rising prices and rising labour Regarding the satisfaction of university canteens, Almanza
costs, many canteens still face difficulties in operating after et al. (1994) believed that the main factors affecting students'
receiving relevant subsidies. At the same time, canteens of satisfaction with canteens were the quality of meals, the
universities face the contradiction between public welfare of location of canteens, the hygiene of meals, and the price of
education and laws of the market economy, and the meals. Meyer et al. (1998) conducted a study on a canteen in a
contradiction between increasing dining requirements of middle school in United States, and believed that the main
students and their limited economic conditions. In university, factors affecting the satisfaction of canteens are the aesthetics
the most important thing for a student is to have a healthy of the menu design, the appearance of the food, the delicious
body. Daily diet is especially important. Canteen should not taste, the service attitude of the canteen staff, the price of the
only play a role in providing food, but also should ensure the food, and the pleasant dining environment. Liu Rungang et al.
nutrition and safety of student's diet and promote the health of (2013) conducted a survey on customer satisfaction in
student's life. Therefore, the quality of universities canteens Changzhou University, and concluded that dining conditions,
and how satisfied students are with the canteen are directly service quality, and canteen products need to be improved, and
related to the stability of the university. proposed targeted approaches. Liu Can et al. (2019) used a
Carrying out investigation and analysis of university stratified cluster sampling method to conduct a questionnaire
students' satisfaction with the canteen can not only allow the survey on 840 students in an university in Shanxi. They
canteen managers to understand the thoughts of consumers studied the level of university students' satisfaction with the
and needs of the canteen, help the canteen to better improve canteen and its influencing factors. Han Dongxu and Ren
the management level, promote logistics self-construction, but Xiangzhao (2018) used a sample of students in a university in
also make the necessary improvements to the canteen through Tianjin to verify the impact mechanism on the satisfaction of
influencing factors Research. This paper analyses the students the university canteen from the aspects of quality, economy,
’satisfaction with the university canteen, helps the university environment and service.
logistics managers to grasp the students’ daily dining Judging from the current situation of customer satisfaction
consumption situation, provides a theoretical basis for about canteen, there are two major problems: First, the
accurately understanding the students ’consumption concepts, evaluation of the school canteen's satisfaction and the index
system are incomplete, and some key indicators are lacking;

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 International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Science
Volume 3, Issue 11, pp. 54-58, 2019. ISSN (Online): 2456-7361

second, the evaluation method is relatively simple, just simple and graduates are the minority. In terms of expenditure
Weighted, and no factor analysis or structural equation model distribution, there are more people who spend 1,000 to 1,500
is used for analysis. RMB, accounting for 46.5%, and those who spend 1500 to
2,000 RMB are second, accounting for 32.6%. In terms of the
III. QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN AND SURVEY number of canteen consumption, “15-21 times a week”
According to the research purpose of this paper, the account for the vast majority, accounting for 62.5%, which
questionnaire mainly investigates the various factors that indicates that the daily meals of students are still dominated by
affect students' satisfaction with university canteens. The canteen consumption.
questionnaire includes the following three parts. The first part
is the basic information of the respondent, mainly including TABLE 1. Sample statistics
gender, grade, average monthly living expenses, and the Type Item Quantity Percentage
Male 105 56.1%
number of consumptions in canteens each week. This part Gender
Female 82 43.9%
aims at better understanding the consumption situation and Freshman 33 17.6%
consumption needs of customers with different characteristics Sophomore 59 31.6%
in the canteen. The second part specifically surveys the Grade Junior 52 27.8%
satisfaction of the school canteen, which is the main part of Senior 26 13.9%
Postgraduate 17 9.1%
the questionnaire, including thirteen Indicators: meal price, 1000RMB below 16 8.6%
meal type, meal taste, meal size, meal freshness, meal hygiene, Average monthly living 1000-1500RMB 87 46.5%
staff attitude, queuing time, dining environment, business expenses 1500-2000RMB 61 32.6%
hours, tableware situation, canteen location, employee hygiene. 2000RMB above 23 12.3%
According to the Likert scale, the perception of each indicator 0-7 8 4.3%
Number of weekly
8-14 57 30.5%
is divided into: very satisfied, satisfied, generally satisfied, consumption in canteens
15-21 122 65.2%
dissatisfied, and very dissatisfied, and assigned 5 points, 4
points, 3 points, 2 points, and 1 point respectively. The third
4.1.2 Descriptive statistical analysis of satisfaction
part is an open-ended question, the purpose of which is to ask
It can be seen from Table 2 below that among the 13
students' suggestions for university canteens for the final
observation indicators, the sample average does not exceed 4
analysis and conclusion.
or is less than 2, that is, there is no satisfaction or very
For the sample collection, the students in Jiangsu
satisfaction and dissatisfaction or very dissatisfaction. Among
University were selected as the survey objects. The relevant
them, the average value of food prices, types of food, taste of
questionnaire design website was used to distribute the
food, and queuing time is low, indicating that students are not
designed online questionnaires. A total of 200 questionnaires
satisfied with these factors. Among all the observation
were retrieved, of which 187 were valid questionnaires, with
indicators, the average of 4 items is below 3 points, and the
an effective rate of 93.5%.
rest are above 3 points, but the highest is only 3.39 points,
IV. ANALYSIS OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN UNIVERSITY which indicates that the student's satisfaction with the
CANTEEN university canteen is not high, at most it is only general
satisfaction. There is still much room for improvement in all
4.1 Descriptive Statistical Analysis aspects of the canteen.
Descriptive statistical analysis of the questionnaire was
conducted to discover its internal laws, and further analysis TABLE 2. Descriptive statistical results of satisfaction
was performed accordingly. Descriptive statistical analysis is Indicator Min Max Average SD
Price 1 5 2.98 0.963
to analyze the various characteristics of a set of data and Type 1 4 2.86 0.923
describe the various characteristics of the measurement sample Taste 1 4 2.7 0.851
and the characteristics of the overall population it represents. Size 1 5 3.13 0.916
This paper uses SPSS22.0 software to carry out statistical Freshness 1 5 3.11 1.021
Meal Hygiene 1 5 3.16 1.005
analysis on the obtained questionnaire data, and obtains the Staff Attitude 1 5 3.18 0.993
approximate situation of the sample. Queuing Time 1 5 2.95 0.98
4.1.1 Sample description Dining Environment 1 5 3.07 0.988
The sample description is a general analysis of the students' Business Hours 1 5 3.32 1.046
gender, grade, average monthly living expenses and the Tableware Situation 1 5 3.2 1.034
Canteen Location 1 5 3.39 1.056
number of weekly consumption in the canteen. The purpose is Employee Hygiene 1 4 3.16 0.848
to understand the composition of students dining in the Overall Satisfaction 1 4 3.14 0.796
canteen of Jiangsu University. The sample structure is shown
in Table 1 below. 4.2 Analysis of the Validity of the Questionnaire
It can be seen from Table 1 that among the 187 valid 4.2.1 Reliability analysis
questionnaires recovered, the proportion of men and women Reliability analysis is to keep the method uniform and
surveyed is close, of which 56.1% are men and 43.9% are repeat the measurement on the same object to determine the
women. The distribution of education is mainly undergraduate consistency of the obtained results. Reliability analysis is a

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 International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Science
Volume 3, Issue 11, pp. 54-58, 2019. ISSN (Online): 2456-7361

commonly used analytical method to test the validity of acceptable; 0.6 indicates that it is not suitable; and 0.5 or less
questionnaires. The reliability analysis of the questionnaire indicates that it is extremely unsuitable. Bartlett's spherical
includes internal reliability analysis and external reliability test is used to detect whether the variables are independent.
analysis. Internal reliability is used to measure internal When the significance is less than 0.05, it indicates that the
consistency between the detected indicators. The higher the variables have significant correlation, which is suitable for
internal consistency, the greater the reliability of the results factor analysis.
obtained. The SPSS 22.0 was used to perform KMO and Bartlett
The reliability test in this paper mainly tests the internal spherical tests on 13 observational indicators obtained from
reliability; using Cronbach's α reliability coefficient as the the canteen satisfaction survey of Jiangsu University. The
measurement basis. The value of α coefficient ranges from 0 results are shown in Table 3 below. It can be seen from Table
to 1. The closer the α coefficient is to 1, the stronger the 3 that the overall KMO value of the questionnaire is 0.868.
reliability and the greater the internal consistency. Generally The canteen satisfaction questionnaire has a high structural
speaking, when the α coefficient is higher than 0.7, the validity and is suitable for factor analysis. At the same time,
reliability is high. When it is lower than 0.5, it is best to the chi-square statistical value of the Bartlett spherical test is
consider redesigning the questionnaire. The overall significant, which is less than 0.05. It also shows that the
questionnaire overall scale is suitable for factor analysis.
Cronbach’s α value of the canteen satisfaction questionnaire in
this paper is 0.931, which meets the reliability conditions of TABLE 3. KMO and Bartlett spherical test results
the questionnaire, indicating that the internal consistency and KMO measure of sample adequacy 0.868
stability of the overall variables of the questionnaire are good. Approximate chi-square 466.080
Bartlett
Df 78
4.2.2 Validity analysis spherical test
Significance 0.000
Validity, that is, effectiveness, is the most basic indicator of
the questionnaire and is divided into three types: content 4.3 Building a Satisfaction Model
validity, criterion validity, and structure validity. When This paper uses factor analysis to establish a satisfaction
evaluating validity, content validity and criterion validity are model. According to the reliability and validity test results of
generally not evaluated, because criteria are difficult to the questionnaire, we know that the data collected by the
determine, and structure validity is usually evaluated. KMO questionnaire is suitable for factor analysis. SPSS 22.0 was
and Bartlett spherical tests are usually used to measure used to perform factor analysis on each of the observation
structural validity, and these indicators are used to test the indicators of the canteen in the questionnaire. As shown in
suitability of factor analysis. A KMO value of 0.9 or above Table 4, the first 3 factors can explain the total variance of
indicates that it is very suitable; between 0.8 and 0.9 indicates 70.774% of the original 13 observation indicators, so these 3
that it is suitable; between 0.7 and 0.8 indicates that it is factors are retained.
TABLE 4. Total variance explained
Initial Eigenvalues Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings
Component
Total % of Variance Cumulative % Total % of Variance Cumulative % Total % of Variance Cumulative %
1 7.19 55.373 55.373 7.198 55.373 55.373 3.114 23.954 23.954
2 1.05 8.124 63.497 1.056 8.124 63.497 3.047 23.442 47.396
3 0.94 7.278 70.774 0.946 7.278 70.774 3.039 23.378 70.774

TABLE 5. Factor load matrix after rotation within three different factors, and are named as: product
Variables Indicators quality, service quality, and canteen hardware. According to
Price 0.023 0.488 0.675
Type 0.439 0.238 0.703
the factor load after rotation, the product quality includes 4
Product
quality Taste 0.424 0.024 0.789 observation indicators, mainly meal price, meal type, meal
Size 0.039 0.489 0.7 taste, and meal size; the service quality includes the freshness
Freshness 0.607 0.292 0.407 of the meal, the hygiene of the meal, the attitude of the staff,
service Meal Hygiene 0.715 0.394 0.163 and the queue time; the canteen Hardware includes dining
quality Queuing Time 0.67 0.142 0.461
environment, business hours, tableware, canteen location, and
Dining Environment 0.785 0.237 0.046
Dining Environment 0.325 0.608 0.48 employee hygiene.
Business Hours 0.248 0.765 0.21 In order to calculate the satisfaction score of each student
Canteen
hardware
Tableware Situation 0.465 0.594 0.261 for the university canteen, regression analysis was used to
Canteen Location 0.334 0.786 0.153 estimate the factor score coefficient. Use SPSS22.0 to
Employee Hygiene 0.547 0.520 0.453
calculate the factor score coefficient matrix, and combine the
factors in Table 4 to explain the total variance of the original
The maximum load variance method is used to perform
variables to calculate a comprehensive score model for each
orthogonal rotation on the factor load matrix to obtain the
rotated factor load matrix as shown in Table 5. It can be seen student's satisfaction with the canteen:
from Table 5 that the 13 items corresponding to the F  (0.23954* F1  0.23442* F2  0.23378* F3 ) / 0.70774
satisfaction indicators of the canteen in Jiangsu University fall The satisfaction score of each student can be calculated

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 International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Science
Volume 3, Issue 11, pp. 54-58, 2019. ISSN (Online): 2456-7361

from the above equation, and the statistical results are shown the canteen satisfaction survey results were used as
in Table 6. It can be seen from Table 6 that students' independent variables, and overall satisfaction was used as the
satisfaction with the university canteen is not high. More than dependent variable for linear regression analysis. The analysis
half of the students feel dissatisfied and only 25.1% of results are shown in Table 7 below. It can be seen from the
students feel generally satisfied. regression results that the adjusted R square is 0.749, which
indicates that the regression equation has a good fit. The
TABLE 6. Satisfaction score statistics
significant probability value corresponding to the F value is
Score Quantity Percentage (%)
F  2 (very dissatisfied) 7 3.7 0.000 less than 0.01, which indicates that the overall
2  F  0 (dissatisfied) 101 54.0 regression effect has reached a significant level, and the
0  F  2 (generally satisfied) 47 25.1 overall stability and reliability of the regression equation is
2  F  3 (satisfied) 23 12.3 high. At the same time, it can be seen from the VIF that the
F  3 (very satisfied) 9 4.9 variance expansion factor is less than 10, indicating that there
is no co-linearity between the three factors and will not affect
In order to find the decisive factors that affect students' the regression coefficient. The resulting regression equation is:
satisfaction with the university canteen, using SPSS22.0 Overall Satisfaction = 0.375 * Service Quality + 0.297 *
software, the three factors obtained through factor analysis of Canteen Hardware + 0.504 * Product Quality + 3.143

TABLE 7. Regression results

Adjusted R 2 0.749 F 55.625 Sig. 0.000
Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients Collinearity Statistics
Independent Variable t Sig.
B Std. Error B Tolerance VIF
(Constant) 3.143 0.053 58.935 .000
Service Quality 0.375 0.054 0.471 6.97 .000 1.000 1.000
Canteen Hardware 0.297 0.054 0.374 5.528 .000 1.000 1.000
Product Quality 0.504 0.054 0.633 9.367 .000 1.000 1.000

students' economics, because they have no financial resources,

V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION and mainly rely on their parents. The canteen should provide
Descriptive statistical analysis, factor analysis, and diversified food services to enrich the variety of meals, such as
regression analysis show that students' satisfaction with the adding some spicy dishes, and adding staple food such as
university canteen is not high. The main factors affecting porridge, rice, noodles, and flour.
satisfaction include product quality, service quality, and Third, enhance staff's overall quality and service
canteen hardware. From the regression equation above, it can awareness. The canteen employees directly serve the students,
be seen that the product quality coefficient has the largest such as cooking and cleaning tableware, so the service level
impact on the overall satisfaction of the canteen, followed by and quality of these employees directly affect the student's
the quality of service, and the smallest impact on the canteen satisfaction with the canteen. The canteen should strengthen
hardware. In order to improve the management level of the the education and training of employees, improve the
university canteen and effectively improve the student's employee assessment mechanism, clearly distinguish between
satisfaction with the university canteen, work can be rewards and penalties, mobilize the enthusiasm of employees,
strengthened from the following aspects. increase the speed of service, improve service attitude, and
First, we must attach importance to students' opinions and impress service awareness.
communicate more with students. The university canteen Fourth, improve the hardware facilities of the canteen. To
satisfaction survey not only can learn the specific satisfaction improve students' satisfaction with the canteen, they must not
level of students for various indicators, but also can only update the old catering kitchenware and equipment,
specifically promote the canteen to summarize and improve its improve the dining environment, add televisions, air
own management. If feedback to the students on the problems conditioners and other facilities, rationalize the functional area
found in the satisfaction survey can be rectified, the students' of the canteen, strengthen the cleanliness of the halls and
enthusiasm for suggestions will be improved, and a healthy tableware, but also pay attention to the quality and hygiene of
development will be formed. Only by forming a good the canteen products, starting from the details and improving
communication mechanism can students be able to correctly from the needs of students. At the same time, a significant
grasp the evaluation standards, provide information feature of the university canteen is that meals are
objectively, and make effective suggestions. concentrated. Therefore, the opening time of the canteen
Second, improve the quality of diet products. From the
should be reasonably arranged and add credit card machines.
analysis of the survey results, we know that product quality
Staff should be added to avoid the disorder of the order when
has the greatest impact on canteen satisfaction, but student
satisfaction with this factor is the lowest. Therefore, students concentrate on meals.
universities should provide diversified food services to meet REFERENCES
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