Comparison of Students' Satisfaction with a Meal of College Foodservice by Operating System

Ly, Sun Yung; Kim, Su Hyun; Kwon, Sunja

Abstract

College foodservice (FS) demands highly-developed operation technique which can provide adequate nutrients to their students, as well as to guide better eating habits and to meet students' various desires. The purpose of this study was to provide basic data to improve college FS satisfaction with food items by comparing 2 contract-managed and 2 self-operated college FS in Daejeon and Chungnam area. According to the results, 59.1% of students frequently (over 3 times per week) took meals at college cafeteria and the main reason for using college cafeteria was the low-price of meal, although the students' satisfaction degree with price of meal was lower in contract-managed FS than in self-operated FS. There were no differences in the food satisfaction degrees with overall appraisal of food items between 2 operating systems of college FS, but the satisfaction degrees with all food items were high in male as compared with female. The higher the negative self-perceived clinical symptoms scores, the lower the satisfaction with foods, which suggests that the health state of students was one of the factors that influenced college FS satisfaction. According to stepwise multiple regression analysis, 'taste of boiled rice', 'overall appraisal of boiled rice', 'overall appraisal of soup', and 'variety of side dish', in decreasing order, were the most relatively important attributes for overall customer satisfaction with food taste of college FS. Finally, there should be further studies on important management factors to improve college FS satisfaction according to 2 operating systems.