An assessment of the Service Quality of

Canteen Concessionaires in Mapua

University – Manila: A Basis
for Improvement

by

John Paolo R. Ocampo

Francis Paolo T. Topacio
Jomari S. Angeles
Jullian Wilson O. Cabrera

A Research Paper Submitted to the Mapúa Senior High School Office

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

Practical Research 2 (RES02)

Mapúa University
April, 2019

ii
 APPROVAL SHEET

This is to certify that we have supervised the preparation of and read the research paper
prepared by John Paolo R. Ocampo, Jomari S. Angeles, Francis Paolo T. Topacio and
Jullian Wilson O. Cabrera entitled An assessment of the Service Quality of Canteen
Concessionaires in Mapua University – Intramuros and that the said research paper has
been submitted for final examination by the Oral Examination Committee.

Firstname M. Lastname Firstname M. Lastname

Adviser Adviser

As members of the Oral Examination Committee, we certify that we have examined this
research paper, presented before the committee on Month Date, Year, and hereby recommend
that it be accepted as fulfillment of the requirement for the course Practical Research 2
(RES02).

Firstname M. Lastname Firstname M. Lastname

Panel Member Panel Member

Firstname M. Lastname
Committee Chairman

This research paper is hereby approved and accepted by the Mapúa Senior High School
Office as fulfillment of the requirement for the course Practical Research 2 (RES02).

Dr. Lilibeth D. Sabino

Principal, Mapua Senior High School

iii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The following is a suggestion ONLY.

My deepest ‘thank you’ LORD for all the gifts You have given me and for directing my path
to the following persons who have been instrumental in the completion of my thesis /
practicum or research report.

Person1, my relation, for contribution.

… so on …

For this achievement, I give back all the glory and praises to the omnipotent Father
Almighty.

Firstname M. Lastname

iv
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE i

APPROVAL PAGE ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vi

LIST OF FIGURES vii

ABSTRACT viii

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

Chapter 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2

Heading 1 3
Heading 2 4
Heading 3…… 5

Chapter 3: TITLE OF A MAJOR ASPECT OF STUDY 6

Abstract 7

Introduction 8

Methodology 11

Heading 1 12
Heading 2 … 13

Results and Discussion 14

Heading 1 15
Heading 2 … 16

Conclusion 17

References 18

Chapter 4: CONCLUSION 19

v
Chapter 5: RECOMMENDATION 20

REFERENCES 21

APPENDICES 22

vi
 LIST OF TABLES

Chapter 2
TABLE 1: TITLE 36
TABLE 2: TITLE … 37
TABLE 3: TITLE 55
TABLE 4: TITLE … 67

Chapter 3
TABLE 1: TITLE 36
TABLE 2: TITLE … 37
TABLE 3: TITLE 55
TABLE 4: TITLE … 67

vii
 LIST OF FIGURES

Chapter 2
FIGURE 1: TITLE 16
FIGURE 2: TITLE … 23
FIGURE 3: TITLE 24
FIGURE 4: TITLE … 27

Chapter 3
FIGURE 1: TITLE 16
FIGURE 2: TITLE … 23
FIGURE 3: TITLE 24
FIGURE 4: TITLE … 27

viii
 ABSTRACT

The abstract gives the reader an overview of the study, based on information from the
other sections of the report. The information given in the abstract is usually the basis of many
readers as to whether they will read the entire report or not. The abstract is one paragraph of
about 100-200 words, single-spaced. The typical information elements included in an abstract
are as follows: (1) Some background or general information on the study; (2) The main topic
(or purpose) of the study and its scope; (3) Some information on how the study was
conducted (or the methodology used in the study); (4) The most important findings of the
study; and (5) A statement of conclusion (justified based on the data presented).

Keywords (maximum of five): keyword1, keyword2, keyword3, keyword4, keyword5

ix
 Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

The canteen is one of the essential place that a school must have. It is where students,

employees, staff and even visitors prefer when they want to eat inside the school. It is

because they would rather spare and save time to be productive in other things to do. They

would choose the canteen where the same food quality can also be found instead of

consuming a lot time that it should supposed to be looking for other options in buying food.

As customers, they must be provided quality food, drinks and services for the price they pay.

Regardless of their different capabilities to afford such service quality, they are still

customers that must be dealt respectfully at the end of the day. Service quality is the core of

any food service in the food industry. It is an assessment of how well a delivered service

conforms to the customer’s expectations. It is also related to customer satisfaction however it

does not mean equivalency. Mapua University – Intramuros has a lot of concessionaries that

serve different kinds of meal and beverage. Moreover, the operating hours is quite long since

it starts at 7 a.m until 6 p.m. This is great and helpful because it serves as options to the

students, staffs and visitors in choosing their preferred food and especially when looking for

an affordable one. The population inside the campus was considered over 16,000 which

primarily consists of Senior High School and College students while a considerable amount

of graduate students, employees and staff. This significant boost can be held accountable due

to the new program of the government which is the Senior High School. As this kind of

problem arise, they still must be persistent and consistent enough in providing their best

service quality to their customers. The key question is whether the service quality of these

1
canteen concessionaires match the perceived quality of its’ customers. Therefore, the goal of

this study is to answer it based on the problem statement.

With that being said, the problem statement of this research are the following:

1. What are the current service problems encountered by the customer in processing their

food from the canteen in terms of the following:

Assurance

Empathy

Reliability

Tangibles

Responsiveness

2. How do customers of the school rate the canteen concessionaires in terms of the following:

Assurance

Empathy

Reliability

Tangibles

Responsiveness

3. What are the improvements recommended to improve the service quality?

The objective of this study is to be an assessment of consumers pertaining to the

service quality of canteen concessionaires of Mapua University – Intramuros which shall

serve as a basis for improvement.

2
 This is most significant to the canteen concessionaires as this could serve as a

feedback to them. Afterwards, it will lead them to better service quality thus eventually more

sales.

Consumers would also benefit from the study because of the improved service quality

if the canteen concessionaires actually try to put some effort and action to this.

Future researchers can use this study if it is relevant to their study or simply want to

improve it therefore making it significant to them.

100 respondents were asked to answer a survey questionnaire that was based on the 5

service quality dimensions. It consists of 15 close-ended questions that were simplified into

the simplest context yet impose the exact thought. The respondents were employee, staff,

visitor and student which is the majority of the respondents. The researchers opted close-

ended questions for consistency of the responses and to minimize the time consumed

extracting gathered data since the sample size is quite big.

Definition of Terminology

Concessionaire – owner of a concession for the use of land or commercial premise

RATER Model – Reliability, Assurance, Tangibles, Empathy, Response

ServQual – short for service quality

Likert scale -

Interval measurement scale -

Four point likert scale -

Close-ended questions -

Assessment - .

3
 Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

After studying multiple school canteens in the Western Province in Sri Lanka,

(Weerasinghe, M.C., Bandara, S., &Sanoon, M. 2017) came into conclusion that sufficient

and caliber physical and human resources are absolutely important to guarantee quality

service. Furthermore, inadequate proper space and housing hinder the improvement of their

quality service. School canteens need to focus on how to gradually improve and fix those

sectors as the time flies if they want to grow even more and maximize their profit. It would

act as the first few steps of the canteen towards the hundred thousand steps in reaching the

firm’s goal. Those are the fundamentals that have been strongly built by any successful firm

in the food industry. Although such criteria might seem to be achieved in the eyes of the

owners but at the end of the day, there is always a room for improvement.

However, there are still a lot of factors to put into consideration. In another study

happened in the private canteens of University of Zimbabwe, (Benhura et al., 2012) those

things weren’t to worry about instead some customers seek for less expensive food stall

nearby and sells a greater variety of food. There are a lot of customers that is willing to pay

for something that is worth paying for. Unfortunately, there will always be customers who

will set a budget for their food. They also seek for the best quality of service they could get

for a price they pay to their extent. Firms must adjust on those customers while maintaining

its quality of service. Moreover, they must also have a random dish in a particular point of

time. With all that being said, service quality contains a lot of variables with some being of

greater value to each other but does not necessarily mean that it is the only point to consider.

4
 “When I'm standing in line to buy my coffee, I want the line to be quick. However, it

does need to be good coffee, you do need to get my order right, and I need to feel like I, as a

customer, matter. Speed is important in my purchase, but not the only aspect I measure as a

customer.” (Scharf, Don't Mistake Speed For Efficiency In Customer Service, 2016).

According to this blog post, a customer’s expectation about a coffee shop is that queuing

time for lines must be short. This reveals to us that one of the most important things in any

kind of shop is that queuing time is an important thing for a shop to improve on.

Long queue lines are a good problem to have: when your business is growing and

attracting new customers, the checkout lines are bound to get busier during peak hours. So,

having queue lines isn’t the problem: it’s slow service times that prevent the queue line from

moving efficiently. This can diminish the customer experience and lead to abandonment.

Luckily, we've got some actionable tips to help you. (“Reduce wait times at queue lines and

keep customers happy during service delays”, 2017) Queuing time causes a lot of bad effects

on a company, the reputation might get pulled down because people think that the service of

the shop is slow leading to long queuing times of lines inside a restaurant or shop.

However, speed isn’t the only thing that a customer expects, they also demand good

service. Miranda Morley (2018) stated that“A restaurant owner should not strive to avoid bad

service, but she should strive to encourage the exceptional service that occurs when service

workers take a genuine interest in their customers. For example, waiters and hosts might ask

customers about their day, help them make food choices and give customers compliments.

Restaurant owners can encourage this kind of good service by honoring employees who are

exceptionally gifted in this area and having them train others.” (Examples of Good Service in

the Restaurant Industry, 2018) Good service is also a very important thing when it comes to

5
restaurants, extra effort is needed from all the staff in a restaurant. From security guards,

waiters and cashiers to even the manager or owner of the place. Right treatment of managers

to his/her staff can produce good and hardworking staff. They need to encourage them and

treat them right for the staff to be motivated in doing ordinary duties extraordinarily well. For

the staff, they should do well in serving the customers, and even treating or greeting them

right because customers tend to have a good impression on these little efforts that the staff

make, which leads them to think that the restaurant is a good one.

Theoretical Framework

Using the RATER Model or the Service Quality determinants, it helped this study

generate and break down ideas on what are the questions the researchers would be surveying

in this assessment.

Reliability

Responsivenes
s Assurance
SERVICE
QUALITY

Empathy Tangibles
Figure 1

6
 Conceptual Framework

Input Process Output

5 Service Quality Conducting the survey Make an assessment of the

dimensions questionnaire to the consumers pertaining to the
respondents service quality of the canteen
Questions generated from concessionaires in Mapua
the 5 Service Quality Data analysis University – Intramuros
dimensions
Data gathering

Fig

Figure 2

Input Process and Output Model is used in presenting the concept of this study.

The 5 Service Quality dimensions and the generated questions from it are the input of this

study. Moving on, the process of this study are conduction of the survey questionnaire, data

gathering and most importantly the data analysis. Finally, the output of this study is to make

an assessment of the consumers pertaining to the service quality of the canteen

concessionaires in Mapua University – Intramuros

Synthesis

Service quality is somehow a broad topic to discuss however due to these literatures

gathered; it made it look narrow and full. All gathered literature provides better

understanding and knowledge towards the service quality of a food service in the industry. It

makes this study more comprehensive and logical because of the given facts and details of

7
other literature that is closely related to this study. It gives insight to the readers on some

important factors to consider in measuring service quality although it contains a lot of

variables. The most important thing these literatures have to do with our study is that it acts

like a guideline and support to the topic. Due to these closely related literatures, it

significantly helped in formulating genuine research questions on our statement of the

problem. Conducting this study would be significantly hard if these critically evaluated

related literatures are not involved and included in this study.

Chapter 3

8
 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Abstract

For conducting the research methodology of this study, the researchers used
quantitative method and survey-questionnaires since the expected respondents for this topic
is huge. The questions comprise of 15 close-ended questions formatted in a likert scale that
was answered by 100 respondents without any prior notice. The data was analyzed in a
descriptive analysis and interval measurement scale with corresponding indication based on
the interval scale.

1. Introduction

Since the topic of this research paper deals with a significant amount of respondents

required, the researchers came up into a decision to use quantitative method. Moreover,

survey-questionnaires were used to save time and make it easier when analyzing already the

gathered data.

2. Methodology

This study used descriptive method specifically the survey-questionnaire. All

information that would be filled out by the respondents shall only be used for educational

purposes and is confidential. The survey-questionnaire comprises 15 questions formatted in

likert scale with a four-point scale so the respondents could better understand and answer

well. In addition, it is based on the statement of the problem. The questions are close-ended

question nonetheless were in its simplest text and still impose the exact meaning.

The researchers targeted 100 respondents as the sample size since the population of

the customers is definitely huge. The respondents were approached and asked to answer the

9
survey-questionnaire without any prior notice whatsoever. It is because it made the data more

credible and accurate.

The researchers will analyze the gathered data quantitatively. Moreover, the likert

scale data shall be analyzed at the interval measurement scale. Descriptive analysis is used

wherein the mean of the central tendency will be included. In this way, whatever the mean

would fall under the interval scale, there is an clear indication of that value. The interval for

the scale is formulated based on the formula (4-1) / 4 = 0.75

The interval scale is written below:

4 - 3.25 as Strongly Agree

3.24 - 2.49 as Agree

2.48 - 1.73 as Disagree

1.72 - 1 as Strongly Disagree

The respondents in this study are students which make up the vast majority,

employees, staff and even some visitor of the Mapua University – Intramuros.

3. Results and Discussion

1. What are the current service problems encountered by the customer in processing

their food from the canteen in terms of the following:

Assurance

Empathy

Reliability

Tangibles

Responsiveness

10
2. How do customers of the school rate the canteen concessionaires in terms of the following:

Assurance

Empathy

Reliability

Tangibles

Responsiveness

3. What are the improvements recommended to improve the service quality?

4. Conclusion

This section addresses the objective(s) pertaining to the major aspect of your research

problem.

Chapter 4

CONCLUSION

11
 This chapter gives the overall conclusion of the study, which addresses the objective(s)

of your research problem. Here, you step back and take a broad look at your findings and

your study as a whole.

12
 Chapter 5

RECOMMENDATION

This chapter indicates statements that suggest the need for further studieswhat else

can be done relevant to your research problem and what other related problems should be

addressed?

13
 REFERENCES

Caparanga, A. R. (2000). Recycling and recovery of Poly(ethylene terephthalate) from post

consumer waste stream, e-merge: the MIT Review, Volume 1 (1), 27-32.

Cardiel, G. G., A. R. Caparanga, B. Jr. T. Doma, J. L. Salvacion and S.T. Yang (2000).
Preliminary engineering geological-geotechnical and instability risk assessment of slopes at
Peace Village, Barangay San Luis, Antipolo, Rizal. Mapua Research Journal, Volume 1 (2),
79-84.

Doma, B. Jr. T., J. L. Salvacion and S.T. Yang (2000). Mass transfer and power consumption
characteristics in rotating fibrous bed bioreactor for xanthan gum fermentation. Mapua
Research Journal, Volume 1 (1), 27-41.

Scilling, R. J. and S. L. Harris (2000). Applied Numerical Methods for Engineers, 1st edition,
Brooks/Cole, New York.

14
APPENDICES

15
 APPENDIX A
Title

Each of the appendices is named with a letter of the alphabet and with title. This
section is single-spaced.

16