Survey design for elementary school fundraiser menu planning

Designing a Survey

My research question was essentially this: what items are best for serving at an elementary school fundraising luncheon? I also wanted to know what guests were willing to pay and whether I could get some degree of work out of them in addition to mere money.

A needed to take into consideration a number of food-related factors. First, there are some foods which people cannot or will not eat. For instance, Buddhists are opposed to eating any kind of animal flesh, so provision should be made for immigrant families from predominantly Buddhist countries. Similar considerations must be made for the dietary requirements of Hindus, Jews, and Moslems (approximately 31% of the local population outside Irvine, CA consists of Asians, many of whom may be Moslems, Hindus or Buddhists). Further, there are some people who prefer vegetarian foods because they view these as more healthful than any other. While a strictly vegetarian cuisine would satisfy the "letter of the law" as far as keeping everyone fed with a clear conscience, it would not necessarily keep everyone happy. There are plenty of people who would be happy eating pork roast or sauteed beef tips; they won't be happy if everything is vegetarian. Also, it is important to remember that in a population of approximately 300 students, there will be at least 300 parents, and if only half of them come to the fundraiser there is a good chance that three or four people will be allergic to at least some of the food we serve, so some consideration has to be made in that area as well. It is impossible to serve one dish that will cover every base.

Variety is the answer, but variety alone becomes expensive. If we offer French, Thai, Moroccan, German, Mexican, Japanese, Brazilian, Indian, Ethiopian, Italian and traditional American food we will find that most people go for only one or two varieties. This means that there will be a lot of leftovers (lost revenue) and very likely a lot of disgruntled people who didn't get their fill of their favorite cuisine.

So to get at this information, I "cooked up" a cuisine questionnaire. I broke the meal down into Appetizer, Salad, Main Dish, Side Dish, Dessert, and Drink categories. I offered survey subjects Asian and Mexican vegetarian/non-vegetarian food and named a few more typical selections for each category, such as pizza for the main course and ladyfingers for an appetizer. This offered subjects a good compromise between variety and practicality, and helped keep the survey sufficiently brief to allay subject fatigue. However, for each category I also allowed for a "fill-in-the-blank" open-form response. This indeed proved a wise measure as it yielded some surprising data as well as giving me ideas for inclusion in next year's survey.

Part II - Research Population

Regarding the population, I would ideally like to poll the families of all 300 students. This was not practical - implementing the survey would have cost nearly as much as the luncheon itself. So, rather than try to measure the entire population, I chose a sample consisting of the 30 members of the local PTA, most of whom have or have had students in the school in question. Although there is some range restriction in this sample because not all board members are parents of children currently in the elementary school, I consider their greater degree of expertise from prior projects more than compensates for this. Given that only 7.4% of the population around Irvine is of Hispanic/Latino background, I expected that very few people would respond favorably toward Mexican food as a choice. However, the results from the pilot study were surprising: 50% marked Mexican food as an option in every instance where it occurred, and 80% chose to write-in "tortilla chips and salsa/queso" under the Appetizer category. I would not have gotten this information had there been no open-form item on the survey.

Part IV

The survey design has been sufficiently described above by way of explaining other aspects of the research that I can forego repeating the description here. The survey itself is attached as an appendix.

Part V - Pilot Study

In preparation for the actual survey's distribution to the PTA board, I conducted a pilot study and distributed the survey to ten strangers in a local grocery store (with the manager's permission). Subjects received the survey attached to a clip board and were provided with pencils for scoring. The most surprising thing was that 8 out of 10 people surveyed wrote-in some version of "chips & salsa" as an appetizer. This is an item I would have included in the appetizer list as a choice had it occurred to me. Fortunately, other people have good ideas as well.

A learned that in spite of the local population consisting mostly of "white" Caucasian or Asian people, Mexican food was selected 50% of the time. It is clearly unwise to make culinary assumptions based on someone's ethnicity.

All 10 subjects ranked "Nutritional Value" highest, but I cannot be certain whether they did this because it really impresses them as the most important or because it occurred first in the list. So the survey as the PTA board will see it will have Nutritional Value positioned as number 5 in the list. Since the write-in blanks have proven so valuable, I intend to keep them, though I will add "Chips and Queso/Salsa" as a choice for the Appetizer section of the survey.

We would like your feedback concerning the upcoming fundraising luncheon at New Horizon Elementary. We are trying to decide what to serve. Please take a few moments and complete the survey below. Feel free to write your comments on the back.

Check All That Apply

Appetizers

Ladyfingers

Hors' Doeuvres (vegetarian)

Hors' Doeuvres (non vegetarian)

Pizza Rolls

Asian Vegetarian

Asian Non-vegetarian

Mexican Vegetarian

Mexican Non-vegetarian

Other:

Salad

Vegetarian

Non-vegetarian

Dressing:

Main Course

Seafood

Lunchmeat Sandwiches (beef, pork, chicken, turkey, salami, etc.)

Vegetarian Sandwiches

Burgers/Hot Dogs

Pizza

Asian Vegetarian

Asian Non-vegetarian

Mexican Vegetarian

Mexican Non-vegetarian

Other:

Sides

Rice

French Fries

Mashed potatos

Steamed Vegetables

Asian Vegetarian

Asian Non-vegetarian

Mexican Vegetarian

Mexican Non-vegetarian

Other:

Dessert

Ice Cream (Choc/Van/Straw)

Cake (Chocolate and Vanilla)

Fruit Salad

Fruit Pie

Cream Pie

Sugar-Free

Other:

Drinks

Coffee

Hot Tea

Iced Tea

Soda (Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite)

Other:

Look at the list of items below and kindly rank them from least important to most important (1 = least important, 6 = most important)

Nutritional Value

Variety

Taste

Portion Size

Quick Preparation

Easy to Eat

Please take a moment to tell us what you would consider a fair price range for the meal.

Circle all that apply: Can you volunteer? Cooking Set-up Clean-up

Take-down Serving Cashier