Date of Award
1-1-2013
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.S. in Food and Nutrition Services
Department
Nutrition and Hospitality Management
First Advisor
Tanya Ruetzler
Second Advisor
James Taylor
Third Advisor
Anne Bomba
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
The objective of this study was to develop an instrument to measure the child friendliness of restaurants using a combination of previous literature and focus groups. The pilot study consisted of a thirty-six item survey instrument that was distributed to forty individuals. Among the forty individuals who received the survey instrument, thirty-three of them completed the survey. A panel of experts reviethe survey results using cognitive factor analysis. The experts were asked to place each item of the survey instrument into categories. From this, five factors emerged. These included: facilities, service, atmosphere, activities, and menu. Six items from the survey instrument were deemed unnecessary and did not easily factor into any of the five categories. These items were eliminated from the survey. As a unitary scale, measuring overall kid friendliness, the Cronbach's alpha = 0.937. Future research can expand on this survey instrument to include more participants testing for reliability and validity per Churchill's (1979) Instrument Development Steps.
Recommended Citation
Bardwell, Amy McCluskey, "Child Friendliness of Restaurants: A Pilot Study" (2013). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1311.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1311