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Cafeterias:
Mass Art vs. Wentworth
By:
Sam Smith
&
Mark St. Jean
Research Methods in Business
Wentworth Institute of Technology
December 2011
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE…………………………………………………………………PAGE 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………….PAGE 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY………………………………………………PAGES 3+4
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION………………………………….......PAGE 5
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE……………………PAGE 6
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODS………………………..PAGES 7-9
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS…………………………………………..PAGES 10-17
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS...........PAGES
18-19
REFERENCES……………………………………………………………….PAGE 20
APPENDICES…………………………………………………………….PAGES 21-23
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Executive Summary
The topic that we chose to research on was to compare the qualities and differences
between the Mass Art Cafeteria and the Wentworth Cafeteria. We conducted a survey of twelve
questions to help us come up with the answers. Since we knew we had to ask nearby residents,
we limited our research to only surveying Wentworth, Mass Art and MCPHS students. Although
both cafeterias are run by the same catering company named Chartwells, there are a number of
differences between the two. The main purpose for conducting the research was to simply see
which cafeteria students liked better and why. Some of the key research questions that we asked
in our survey were:





Which Cafeteria do you prefer and why?
What suggestions do you have to make Wentworth’s cafeteria better?
What suggestions do you have to make Mass Arts cafeteria better?
Rank the speed of service at each cafeteria: (1 to 5 scale, 5 being very fast)
Rank the food at each cafeteria: (1 to 5 scale, 5 being excellent)
Our hypothesis was that Mass Art was going to be more preferred for a number of different
reasons. Although we knew Wentworth is under construction we didn’t expect that it would
affect our data too much. We knew that the majority of the students asked would have eaten at
Beatty (Wentworth’s Cafeteria) before the construction had started. We also thought Mass Art
would be preferred because it is a larger facility and there seems to be more options to choose
from. After we created our surveys we went out into the field to conduct our research. We went
to both cafeterias Mass Art and Beatty and asked students there to help us gather our research.
We would very politely ask for student’s time and see if they would take our survey. We asked
60 students in total and a majority ended up being men. Since we wanted to have a relation to
those taking our survey we asked them some general background information. Almost 100% of
the students we asked went to school at Wentworth and most of them were sophomores. After
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the students were asked to rank the speed of service at each cafeteria (1 to 5 scale, 5 being very
fast) Mass Art ended up with a higher average of 3.2 over Wentworth’s 2.7. We also asked
about the quality of food. Mass Art also had a higher average here with an average food quality
of 3.3 over Wentworth’s 2.4 (1 to 5 scale, 5 being excellent). After asking the students which
cafeteria they preferred: 42 preferred Mass Art and 18 preferred Wentworth. This research
proves that our hypothesis was in fact right. The students did indeed prefer Mass Art cafeteria
over Wentworth’s. Research shows that they liked the food quality better and thought that they
had a faster service.
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Cafeterias: Mass Art vs. Wentworth
Chapter One: Introduction
Our research topic was to compare the qualities and differences between Mass Arts
cafeteria and Wentworth’s cafeteria. We wanted to research this topic because we believe that
Mass Art cafeteria is a better environment to eat at and has somewhat better food than
Wentworth. The odd thing is though is that both cafeterias are run by the same catering
company named Chartwells. Since we didn’t understand why this would be, we decided to ask
students what their point of view was. We wanted to see if students had the same idea that we
did. We have a number of different reasons for the purpose of this study. The first purpose is to
simply see which cafeteria students like better and why. We wanted to know what other
student’s thoughts were and what their views were about the cafeterias. Another purpose was to
see what qualities of the cafeterias make them appealing. We wanted to know what the students
liked or didn’t like specifically about each one and what aspects made either one better. Finally,
the last purpose was to see how often the students actually ate at either of the cafeterias. The
significance of the study is to gather information about the cafeterias that we as students eat at.
We want to know what the students believe and what suggestions and comments they have about
Mass Arts and Wentworth’s cafeterias.
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Chapter Two: Review of the Literature
Some general background information about the cafeterias would be they are both catered
by Chartwells Food Services. Although both cafeterias are catered by the same company we
believe Mass Arts food is better quality, we just don’t know why. It could be because the two
cafeterias cook their food differently, or maybe it’s different because there are different people
doing the cooking. Mass Art recently renovated their cafeteria in the past year to allow faster
service, more food options, and even more places for students to sit and eat their food.
Wentworth has had the same cafeteria now for a number of years. It wasn’t until this year
currently that Wentworth has started to renovate their cafeteria and the building it is inside of.
This means that these two cafeterias are upgrading their ideas to enlighten customer satisfaction.
Wentworth and Mass Art are also both part of the Colleges of the Fenway. The Colleges
of the Fenway is a neighborhood of five colleges: Emmanuel, Mass Art, Wentworth, MCPHS,
Simmons and Wheelock. This is actually how we were able to conduct or research. A benefit of
the Fenway colleges is that we can eat at all of these colleges cafeterias. Usually, colleges only
allow you to eat at their cafeteria with their meal plan. Since we have Fenway Cash, we are
allowed to eat at any of the five colleges. This means that Wentworth students can eat at our
cafeteria and Mass Arts. Since it was so broad to do all the Fenway cafeterias, we cut down our
options and specifically chose only Mass Arts and Wentworth’s cafeterias. These two cafeterias
are the closets to campus (one being on campus) and felt that they were the most commonly used
by Wentworth students. Since we are students at Wentworth we could easily tell where the
majority of students went to eat their meals and decided to focus on those cafeterias.
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Chapter Three: Research Methods
The main research method used to gather all the information to pursue in our studies was the
questionnaire or survey. We created a twelve question survey asking specific questions that will
only help us and our research. We knew that students would not want to take a lot of time out of
their schedules to take our questionnaire so we asked the least amount of questions that would
give us the most efficient data as possible. Here are the questions we included:
1. Gender: Male ___
Female___
2. Which College do you attend?
Wentworth____
Mass Art____
MCPHS____
3. What year in college are you?
Freshman____
Year___
Sophomore____
Junior____
Senior___
Graduate___
4. Place of residence?
College Dorm____
Commuter____
Other____
5. Which cafeteria(s) have you eaten at?(Check all that apply)
Mass Art___ Wentworth____
6. Check which meal of the day you eat at the cafeteria (check all that apply)
Breakfast____
Lunch____
Dinner____
7. Rate the speed of service at each cafeteria:
a. Mass Art
1
2
3
4
Very Slow
b. Wentworth
1
5
Very Fast
2
3
4
5
3
4
5
8. Rank The food at each cafeteria:
a. Mass Art
Qualityb. Wentworth
1
2
Poor
1
Excellent
2
3
4
5
5th
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9. Which Cafeteria do you think has a better seating arrangement?
Mass Art____
Wentworth____
Both Equal____
10. Which Cafeteria do you prefer and why?
11. What suggestions do you have to make the Wentworth cafeteria better?
12. What suggestions do you have to make the Mass Art cafeteria better?
We came up with these questions by figuring out exactly what we needed to ask to get us the
information we needed for our research. We knew that the questions would need to be very
specific, simple, and easy to answer. We also made sure to make the questions short so the
people taking our survey wouldn’t have to read too much. People don’t like having to answer
long questions and will probably end up skipping questions if they don’t feel like reading it.
Our hypothesis was that Mass Art was going to be more preferred for a number of different
reasons. Although we knew Wentworth is under construction we didn’t expect that it would
affect our data too much. We knew that the majority of the students asked would have eaten at
Wentworth’s Cafeteria before the construction had started. We also thought Mass Art would be
preferred because it is a larger facility and there seems to be more options to choose from. Mass
Art is also newer. Just this past year Mass Art renovated their cafeteria. They updated their
seating arrangements, added cashiers to move lines faster, and even expanded the cafeteria and
made it larger. This is why we thought Mass Art would be more preferred.
To collect our data we decided to go to both cafeterias and ask the students inside. We first
went to Mass Art because we felt we would get more reviews from Wentworth. We went over to
Mass Art at noon time because we know that’s when it is the busiest. What we did was go
around lunch tables and politely ask people for their time to help us gather information and take
a quick questionnaire. Most of the students from Mass Art were very helpful but there were a
number of studetns who simply said no or respectively declined. After getting a number of
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reviews from Mass Art we went over to Wentworth to pursue in our studies. The students at
Wentworth seemed to be more help to us and certainly a lot nicer. We figured we would get
more students from Wentworth because we go there and know more familiar faces. We ended
up getting a majority of our data from Wentworth’s cafeteria.
Some instruments that we utilized in our study would include the computer and the
questionnaire. We used the questionnaire to gather our data and find out specific answers to help
us with our research. We used the computer as an instrument to organize all the data that we had
collected. Since we surveyed 60 students, there was a lot of data that we were dealing with. The
computer allowed us to make spread sheets that helped make it easier for us to manage, edit, use
all the information that we had gathered in our studies.
An important aspect that you must recognize when doing research in the field is your
limitations. For our topic we didn’t have too many limitations. We only had to make sure that
they were students/former students and that they had eaten at both Mass Art and Wentworth
cafeterias. This made it easier for us and made our target audience be students from Wentworth,
Mass Art or MCPHS that have eaten at both cafeterias.
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Chapter Four: Results
After conducting our questionnaire, organizing our data and managing our research, we
finally came up with the results. We ended up collecting 60 surveys which means we asked 60
students in total to help us get the information we needed. Since we wanted to have some sort of
relation with the students helping us we decided to ask some general background information in
the beginning of our survey. For our hypothesis we did assume that we would be asking mostly
men because of the girl to guy ratio of our school. It turns out we were right. We also said that
we would mostly ask sophomore students because that’s the student body that we know the most.
After doing the research we ended up doing mostly sophomores as we predicted. Out of 60
students this is what we found out about them:
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To give the people a better reasoning we put our data into pie charts to make it easier for them to
visualize the actual differences between the students.
We also asked about the students living arrangements. We asked the question:
Place of residence?
College Dorm____
Commuter____
Other____
For our hypothesis we predicted that we would mostly be asking students who lived in college
dorms. We predicted this because we had done some studies on the weekends which forced us to
believe there would not be many commuters. Turns out we were wrong, there were 26 students
who lived in a college dorm, 24 commuters and 10 other. Here is a pie graph to show the data in
a more visual form:
 Living Arrangements
 26 College Dorm
 24 Commuters
 10 Other
dorm:
commuter:
other:
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To find out which cafeteria had better seating arrangements we asked the students to answer the
following question:
Which Cafeteria do you think has a better seating arrangement?
Mass Art____
Wentworth____
Both Equal____
For our hypothesis we assumed that Mass Art would receive the most votes to have a better
seating arrangement. We predicted this because Mass Art has a larger area for students to sit at
resulting in more places and options for students to eat. Mass Art also has new tables and seats
because they recently renovated. We believed that students would vote for Mass Art mostly
because it’s newer than Wentworth. It turns out that we were correct. After gathering our results
we found out that 43 students thought Mass Art had better seating, 11 students voted Wentworth,
and 6 students said they were both the same. Here is a graph we made to show our results in a
more visual way for everyone to see:
Mass Art: 43
Wentworth: 11
Both Equal: 6
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Mass Art:
Wit:
Equal:
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To figure out which cafeteria had a faster food service and better quality of food we asked the
following questions:
Rate the speed of service at each cafeteria:
a. Mass Art
1
2
3
4
Very Slow
b. Wentworth
1
5
Very Fast
2
3
4
5
3
4
5
Rank The food at each cafeteria:
c. Mass Art
Qualityd. Wentworth
1
2
Poor
1
Excellent
2
3
4
5
For our hypothesis we assumed that Mass Art would have a faster service because it has more
cashiers than Wentworth and has more employees. Although each cafeteria may cook the food
at the same speed it comes down to how long you wait to sit down after you get your food in
which case we thought Mass Art was quicker. As a result we found out that the average for
Mass Art was 3.2 and the average for Wentworth was 2.7 (1 to 5 scale, 5 being very fast). For
quality of food we were really unsure which cafeteria would win. We were unsure because both
cafeterias are catered by the same company which means they should have the same food. As a
result we found out that the average for Mass Art was 3.3 and the average for Wentworth was 2.4
(1 to 5 scale, 5 being Excellent). Here is the data that we collected:
 Mass Art Speed of Service Average: 3.2
 Wentworth Speed of Service Average: 2.7
 Mass Art Quality of Food: 3.3
 Wentworth Quality of Food: 2.4
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To find out what time of day the students usually eat at the cafeterias we asked the question:
Check which meal of the day you eat at the cafeteria (check all that apply)
Breakfast____
Lunch____
Dinner____
For our hypothesis we thought that most students eat at the cafeterias around lunch time. We
thought this mostly because of personal experience. When getting food around lunch time there
are the longest lines and the most amounts of people. This is because there are the most amounts
of students on campus in the middle of the day because that’s when students usually have
classes. As a result we figured out that 28 students ate breakfast at the cafeteria, 55 ate lunch,
and 26 ate dinner. This does not add up to 60 because we said “check all that apply,” this means
students eat more than just one meal a day at the cafeteria. Here is the data that we collected:
 Breakfast: 28 students
 Lunch: 55 students
 Dinner: 26 students
To figure out which cafeteria students preferred, we simply asked the question:
Which Cafeteria do you prefer and why?
For our hypothesis we assumed that students would mostly prefer the Mass Art cafeteria for a
number of different reasons. One of the main reasons is because it is newer. When something is
newer people just assume that it is better, but in most cases it usually is. Not only is it newer but
it actually has more options for food there. We know this from personal experience because we
have eaten at both cafeterias before. Also, like we were saying before (and like we proved) Mass
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Art has a better seating arrangement; there are more options and places for students to eat their
food. These are all reasons why we thought people would prefer Mass Art. As a result we found
out that we were correct, 42 students preferred Mass Art and 18 students preferred Wentworth.
Some reasons why students preferred Mass Art were: It had better food, nicer facility, more
seating, faster service and more women. For those who preferred Wentworth their reasons were
pretty much the same and that was because it was of more convenience. They liked Wentworth
better because it was closer and more efficient for them. We made a graph to give viewers more
of a visual:
Mass Art: 42 students
Wentworth: 18 students
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Mass Art:
Wit:
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To finish up with our questionnaire and to figure out what people had to say about the cafeterias
we simply asked the questions:
What suggestions do you have to make the Wentworth cafeteria better?
What suggestions do you have to make the Mass Art cafeteria better?
This was a very open ended question that we asked so we could see what students believed what
could make the cafeterias better in their eyes. We wanted to know exactly what aspects they
would change about either cafeteria that would meet their satisfaction or others satisfaction. As a
result we came up with the following: Some common reoccurring suggestions for Wentworth
included: Cleaner Facilities, Line Management, Expand food choices, Upgrade Food Quality,
Serve Breakfast Longer and more space for seating. Some common reoccurring suggestions for
Mass Art included: More Space, Bigger Tables, Faster Lines and Keep it the way it is! Here are
some examples of our data:
Reoccurring Suggestions: WIT
Cleaner Facilities
Line Management
Expand Food Choices
Upgrade Food Quality
Serve Breakfast longer
More space for seating
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Reoccurring Suggestions: MassArt
More space
Bigger tables
Faster lines
Keep it the Way it is
In conclusion we proved our hypothesis that Mass Art Cafeteria would be preferred over
Wentworth’s Cafeteria. After conducting out survey we came up with solid research that proves
that 42 out of 60 students would rather eat as Mass Art than Wentworth. We also figured out that
Mass Art was rated for better food quality and a faster food service. More students thought Mass
Art had better seating arrangements and most comments told Mass Art to keep their cafeteria the
same. On the down side we figured out the Wentworth has a slower, less food quality, worse
seating, and was less preferred over Mass Art. We plan to use our data to help Wentworth out
with their cafeteria and hope to conduct another survey after all construction is done and over
with. We believe the numbers will be different after Wentworth renovates the building.
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Chapter Five: Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations
After conveying our questionnaire/survey it helped us in finding out what students thought of
about the Wentworth and Mass Art Cafeterias. We also found out why students preferred either
cafeteria and what suggestions and comments they had about them. The importance of this study
was to figure out what the students thoughts were about the cafeterias. We believed we could
make a difference in our community where we as students eat our meals. By conducting the
survey and finding the results we believe we can give our results to the cafeterias to let them
know what a portion of the student body thinks about their cafeteria and the facility it is in.
To conduct our survey we went to both cafeterias when we believed they were the busiest and
most crowded. We then went around to students courteously and asked them for a moment of
their time to help us pursue in our studies about the cafeterias. We started at Mass Art and went
around to lunch tables and asked students in groups so we could get more than one review at a
time. After getting a number of reviews we then went over the Wentworth’s cafeteria in hope to
get more. We successfully got more reviews from Wentworth but we believe it was because we
knew more of the students and were pleased with our results. After we conveyed our survey and
organized our data we finally got our outcomes. We asked a total of 60 students what cafeteria
they preferred and 42 chose Mass Art and 18 chose Wentworth. Students mainly preferred Mass
Art for their better seating arrangements and the better quality of food that they have. They also
preferred it for their faster service that they offered. Most students believed that Mass Art had a
faster service and the results show the average speed of 3.2 for Mass Art and 2.7 for Wentworth
(out of 5, 5 being fast). We also asked the students what comments or suggestions they have to
complement or change about the cafeterias. For Wentworth most students suggested to expand
their food choices and upgrade the food quality. They also suggested that Wentworth should
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serve their breakfast longer for the convenience of the students. Some reoccurring suggestions
for Mass Art included bigger tables and to keep it the way it is. Mass Art overall got better
reviews and was preferred over Wentworth. Our limitations were time constraints and simply
finding students who had eaten at both cafeterias before. We also had to make sure that we
found students that attend/attended Wentworth, Mass Art or MCPHS. Our limitations didn’t
really cause us many problems although we did run into plenty of students who had not eaten at
both cafeterias. We ran into to students that had either eaten at one or the other but not both.
Some suggestions that we would have for further research would be to have more time and to ask
more students. If we asked more students to take our survey we could have gotten more views
about what students thought about the cafeterias. By having more results it really breaks down
what the majority of the students believe. It would also give more depth in our research and give
us more data to work with. We also could have had a survey of more questions. We didn’t want
our survey to be too long because we didn’t want to have to use up lots of time of our
participants. If we had more time we could have gone around a number of additional times to
gather more data.
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References
Chartwells. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2011, from http://www.chartwellshighereducation.com/:
http://www.chartwellshighereducation.com/
Mass Art Dining. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2011, from
http://inside.massart.edu/campus_life/dining_services.html:
http://inside.massart.edu/campus_life/dining_services.html
(2011, October 23). Mass Art vs. Beatty. (M. S. Smith, Interviewer)
Wentworth Dining. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2011, from http://www.dineoncampus.com/WIT/:
http://www.dineoncampus.com/WIT/
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Appendices
Appendix1
Certificate of Completion
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Extramural Research certifies that
Sam Smith successfully completed the NIH Web-based training course “Protecting
Human Research Participants”.
Date of completion: 09/25/2011
Certification Number: 770594
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Appendix2
Certificate of Completion
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Extramural Research certifies that Mark
St. Jean successfully completed the NIH Web-based training course “Protecting Human
Research Participants”.
Date of completion: 09/25/2011
Certification Number: 770599
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Appendix3
Please take a moment to fill out our survey. Your responses will be anonymous and the information will be
used in a project to help us find out which cafeteria COF students prefer.
1.
Gender: Male ___
2.
Which College do you attend?
Female___
Wentworth____
3.
Mass Art____
MCPHS____
What year in college are you?
Freshman____
Sophomore____
Junior____
Senior___
5 th Year___
Graduate___
4.
Place of residence?
College Dorm____
5.
Which cafeteria(s) have you eaten at?(Check all that apply)
Mass Art___
6.
Wentworth____
Check which meal of the day you eat at the cafeteria (check all that apply)
Breakfast____
7.
Commuter____ Other____
Lunch____
Dinner____
Rate the speed of service at each cafeteria:
a.
Mass Art
1
2
3
4
Very Slow
b.
8.
1
Very Fast
2
3
4
5
2
3
4
5
Rank The food at each cafeteria:
a.
b.
9.
Wentworth
5
Mass Art
1
Quality-
Poor
Wentworth
1
Excellent
2
3
4
5
Which Cafeteria do you think has a better seating arrangement?
Mass Art____
Wentworth____ Both Equal____
10. Which Cafeteria do you prefer and why?
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
11. What suggestions do you have to make the Wentworth cafeteria better?
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
12. What suggestions do you have to make the Mass Art cafeteria better?
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
Thank you for participating in our survey. Your responses will help us with our research greatly.