Survey Report Regarding College Cafeteria

As a part of the English course "Issues in the Disiplines", we undertook the survey "ACT cafeteria" for the sring semester 2013. The ACT cafeteria opened in 2011 as the ownership changed and has been active until today with working hours from 09:00 to 18:00 (Mon-Fri). The main purpose of the survey is to find out what members of the ACT community think about the resent situation regarding cafeteria services as well as find out proposed improvements .In addition an effort was made to establish the food habits of ACT memebers and draw conclusions on how their lifestyle is related to the issues the face conserning the cafeteria in order to relate the reasons why such problems are encountered. Before knowing the results, we expected to find that some people might have special food regimes which would restrict them from buying certain products. Additionally, we expected that new foods may be in demand. However, we came up with some results that were unexpected, especially regarding financial aspects. Further details will be provided in the analysis.

The survey had a questionnaire format, including multiple choice questions, grading in scales as well as open questions.What's more all questions had an option for individual alternative (such as "other" in multiple choice questions) in order to examine opinions that we might have not taken into consideration. The 50 participants that undertook the survey were selected randomly and are solemnly members of ACT ,that make interactions with the cafeteria. The key informants were both males (23) and females (27) from several origins including Serbians, Greeks, Americans, Bulgarians, Albanians and other. Furthermore, the participants were of several age groups and the majority was from 18 to 25. Additionally the people who took the survey were asked not only about their age and origin but also about their habits regarding food, their residence status and physical condition. All participants were initially informed about the purpose of the survey as well as the main concept of the questions. Also, they filled the survey anonymously and the results were kept secure after the procedure. Last but not least, all participants were informed that the results of the survey would be presented in class and the report would be handed to the teacher, Mrs. Ruth Sutton.

The majority of the participants thought themselves to have a normal weight (37) while 7 described themselves as underweight and 6 as overweight. Also, most of people were from 18 to 15 (47), only 3 people answered to be from 25 to 35 while we had no older participants. Out of 50 people that took our survey we had a gender balance as 23 were males and 27 females. It was healthy to see that most people did not seem to have weight problems but also they had quite accurate image of their body.

In our introductive question " Who do you live with?" we aimed to see if the people who live with others would prefer to eat at home or with other individuals. Most of people stated that they live alone (40%) or with their parents/siblings (36%). Additionally , 16 %lived with friends while only 8% with a spouse or a partner .In the analysis we found that most of the people that lived alone would more likely eat lunch at the cafeteria while the ones who lived with others would avoid eating from the cafeteria.

Conserning the question "Do you have any special eating habits and if so, why?" the majority answered negativily; yet 44% people answered positively so the the opinions were divided considerably evenly. From those who replied having special eating habits , most stated being on a diet to be the reason. In addition 12% people said to be picky at food, 4% described themselves as vegetarians while only 2% had food allergies and 2% a medical condition. Therefore we observe that 22 people have reasons to avoid eating from the cafeteria unless certain foods are provided.

When we asked how often people use the cafeteria 32% said every day, 48% few times a week while 10% order just few times a month and 10% never or very rarely.

Half of the people who took the survey (50%) replied that they use the cafeteria in the rush hour of the big break (13:00-14:00) , 20% from 14:00-16:00 and 14% from 16:00-18:00. The smallest percentage