LANG209 Progress Report ¡V A comparison of the food courts at HKUST
To: LANG209 Instructor
From: Peter, LANG209 student
Date: 12/04/2002
Subject: Progress Report on the study of the comparison of the food courts at HKUST
There are a number of the restaurants and canteens at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). These restaurants and canteens provide various types of dining services to the students and staff at HKUST, and attract many secondary school students from the nearby secondary school.
Recently, there have been many discussions from the HKUST students on the quality of food and services provided by the food courts through the Electronic Notice Board and HKUST Newsgroup. The aim of this study project is therefore to compare three selected food courts at HKUST (namely LG5 Food Court, LG7 Student Canteen and 1/F Coffee Shop) by investigating the attitude of the HKUST students towards the services provided by the food courts, and make suggestions on the improvements to the food courts.
This report details the work completed and the work remaining on the study project and concludes with an overall appraisal of the progress made.
To achieve the aims aforementioned, we have designed a questionnaire to collect the opinions of HKUST students, both undergraduates and postgraduates for analysis. We have distributed the questionnaire to the students on campus and by electronic methods. The questionnaire is designed to find out the dining habits of the students such as the frequency and amount of money spent on dining out at the food court at HKUST. They are asked to compare the food courts at HKUST, which include LG5 Food Court (McDonald¡¦s, Spicy Thai-Don, Noodles Garden, and Pizza and Spaghetti Counter), LG7 Student Canteen and 1/F Coffee Shop. The criteria include food quality, variety, staff attitude, efficiency of services, general design and value for money. The preferences of the students on the food courts are also investigated.
Following the meeting on February 22, 2002 at LG7, we drafted a questionnaire for this study. At the meeting with the course instructor on March 4, 2002 at the Self Access Centre, the questionnaire was discussed and revised. Ten copies of the questionnaire were prepared and distributed to the students on the first floor of the HKUST Library on March 12, 2002. All the copies were collected back successfully.
However, there are few problems that we have encountered. Some students seemed to find us annoying to them as they were having their revision, while some complained that the 5-page questionnaire was too long. From the collected questionnaires, we found that some students did not follow the instructions and ticked more than one option, in which they were supposed to choose one option only. For the question on the preferences of the students on the food courts, some did not rank the food courts but only put a tick on one food court only.
To solve these problems, we distributed the questionnaire in the classroom after the lectures and some questionnaires were sent electronically to the students. The questionnaire was complied into 2 pages to reduce the number of pages of the questionnaire. We also highlighted some important instructions and rewrote the question on the preferences of the students on the food courts. This proved to be more successful as very few students were found misunderstanding to the instructions.
The website of Campus Services Office (CSO) provides much information on the food courts in HKUST for us, such as the seating capacity, clientele and the nature of the business. The Catering Advisory Committee of CSO conducts hygiene inspections for all on-campus catering outlets every month. The committee also monitors the quality of food and services of the outlets (CSO, 2002). This information will be useful for our final report.
The Hygiene Report 2001 was also found in the website but it only examined the hygiene condition of LG1 Canteen and G/F Restaurant in 2001, therefore not very useful to us.
We have collected over 40 questionnaires and a minimum of 60 questionnaires are expected to be collected by the mid-April 2002. Analysis of the collected questionnaires is in progress. So far, we have found that the 1/F Coffee Shop provides the best quality of food and general design while the LG7 Student Canteen has the greatest variety of food for students to choose with. In terms of the staff attitude, the 1/F Coffee Shop, McDonald¡¦s and Pizza and Spaghetti Counter are the best. Also, McDonald¡¦s provides the most efficient services and is the most value of money to students. However, Noodles Garden is found to be the worst in terms of food quality, variety of good, staff attitude and general design. We will continue to analyze the other parts of the questionnaire.
From April 2 to April 8, 2002, the Student Catering Committee conducted a survey to determine the mode of operation for the LG5 Food Counter No.4, because the catering contract of the current counter (Pizza Bird) will expire on June 30, 2002. We will find out if the result of the survey is useful to us when it is available to the public.
The progress of the study project has been reasonably smooth. Although our progress in the collection of the questionnaires has been slowed down by the mid-term examinations between April 8 and April 11, 2002, we expect the collection of the questionnaires to be completed on schedule by mid-April 2002. The analysis of all the questionnaires will then take about one-week time. The final report will be submitted as scheduled on April 29, 2002.
Campus Services Office (2002), Homepage of Campus Service Office
¡@
¡@
¡@