Monthly Archives: October 2013

The foggy Vancouver weather has cleared up and the sun is finally poking through the clouds

Our Successful Survey Distribution

Before distributing the final version of our survey, we made two important changes to our list of questions, based on feedback we received from our TA and feedback we received from the first students we surveyed. To start with, we added a fundamental question: “Do you use campus vending machines? (Yes or No)”. The significance of including this basic question is to be able to classify all survey respondents (and their preferences) as current customers versus potential customers. Secondly, we decided to remove a too-specific question–asking how respondents felt about the potential introduction of one particular new type of product–in favour of asking a more generalized form: “Would you be more inclined to consider purchasing from the vending machine if new options were clearly labeled as ‘new item’?”.

Distributing Surveys at Irving K. Barber

Over the past few days, each group member has distributed approximately 30 surveys, for a total of  210 surveys completed across campus. We feel this is a large enough sample size to allow us to make meaningful interpretations. We coordinated our efforts to target as many popular locations on campus as possible. Tyra and Rosemary administered surveys at the Student Union Building to individuals who were seated at the cafeteria, near locations where vending machines were installed. Carmen administered surveys at Woodward Library, and Judy went to the other popular library on campus, Irving K. Barber. Katherine and Aveir both handed out surveys at the main bus loop. Lastly, Alex distributed her surveys at the UBC Bookstore. We carefully chose these locations to be as inclusive as possible to all individuals from the various faculties on campus. We also tried to cover a variety of times of day. This was done intentionally to avoid sampling bias: taking a sample not representative of the population.

Aveir Waiting for a Participant to Finish the Survey

We are happy with how the surveying process went, and we attribute much of this to our pilot survey, as it really helped us prepare for what to expect (in terms of time-commitment and community responsiveness), as well as eliminate any blatant problems with the survey ahead of time. We printed three surveys to a page, so we were able to minimize paper use to 70 pages total, and printing was the only resource we required to complete this activity. From this undertaking, we learned that there are specific steps you can take to really make the process of surveying easier: having clipboards (especially if people are not seated anywhere!), and having several pens on hand. The first of us to administer surveys were able to share tips like these to help the rest of our group be more prepared.

Alex With her Finished Surveys

Judy Handing Over a Survey

Completed Surveys Distributed by Tyra and Rosemary

What To Do With the Survey?

Now that we have finished the fieldwork for the survey, each member of the group is responsible for manually transcribing their completed surveys to a spreadsheet so that we can compile the complete tabulated results of the survey. We are planning to quantitatively analyze the ranked questions in order to find statistics that can be generalized to the entire campus population. We can make charts to allow this information to be easily conveyed and discussed. We hope to make recommendations to our community partner based on these findings. We also plan to read through the qualitative answers to see if there are any frequent answers that can be discussed in detail. This, in turn, should help us to understand patterns regarding student snack and beverage preferences, and their vending machine purchases.

Communication with Our Community Partner

Irving K. Barber Library on UBC Campus

We have managed to set up a meeting time with Victoria and Liska, as well as our TA, Lorne. Judy has been in contact with them via email, and November 7th seems to be the best time for everyone. Our group would like to meet with Victoria to update her on the results of the survey, as well as discuss with her our plans for the audit of the GSVM (the current healthy snack vending model).

Resources to Start our Final Research Report

We are using previous LFS 450 reports and articles from the UBC library website to aid us in completing our project. We are also working to obtain the necessary information on sales and locations of the current GSVM on campus, which we will then audit and compare to BC’s Healthier Choices policy. In addition, we are relying on skills we gained in our previous LFS 252 statistics course to help us with the data analysis.

What’s To Come

The Halloween Spirit

We still have a lot ahead of us, as we have yet  to complete the audit of the current GSVM but, with the survey taken care of, we have come a long way. All we have left to do for to the survey itself is to analyze the results, and once everything is complete we will write our research paper based on all of our findings.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe Halloween!

Cheers,

Group 26

CBEL Community Visit

As we are UBC students, we visit our CBEL community almost everyday. Most of our group members have become more aware of vending machines across campus and have spotted some hidden in building corridors and libraries. We have taken pictures of some “classical” vending machines and some Gage Snack Vending Models and have examined the contents and the frequency of consumers purchasing a snack or a drink: There was a clear preference for snacks than beverages. We believe this is due to the greater variety of snacks that attract individuals visually or because people, in general, are more prone to purchase snacks instead of beverages (which they can get either from a water fountain or for free from Starbucks).

LFS 350 Class, Situated in the MacMillan Building

Feedback from our Community Partners Victoria and Liska

We are having some trouble setting up a meeting with our community partner, Victoria; at times we are busy while our community partner is available to meet and vice versa. We were planning on bringing our TA to the meeting, however, our TA is away on vacation and we do not know when he will be back. We hope to have a meeting soon because we would like to present our survey to Victoria and get feedback. As of now, we will be emailing Victoria with our research question and our final survey questions to make sure we are on the right track. Our group no longer wants to prolong the distribution of surveys; the faster we distribute them, the faster we get results. Our first survey will be distributed by two group members: Rosemary and Tyra at the bottom floor of the UBC SUB this friday morning.

Beverage Options at the School of Kinesiology

Description and Reflection of Community Visit and Pilot Survey Impressions

Last Friday, we conducted our pilot survey at the UBC SUB: This pilot survey was conducted to make sure our survey questions were appropriate for our research. Each survey on average took two minutes, therefore it took us roughly twenty minutes to complete ten surveys. We encountered some problems with our pilot survey: first, students did not want to fill out the survey because they don’t use vending machines. It was much harder than planned to find students who use vending machines on campus. Another observation we made was that two friends who filled out the survey had similar answers for the qualitative questions. Clearly this indicates that both students discussed their answers with each other and some persuasion occurred that changed a friend’s thought. We need to make sure that all surveys are independent of each other. Another problem we encountered was that our survey formatting caused students to circle “Always” instead of a number for each question. We need to find a way to clearly state that a number should be circled, otherwise we cannot use qualitative research. Lastly, we had issues with our last survey question: “What categories of non-perishable snacks or beverages would you like to see added to vending machines campus-wide?”  Some participants did not clearly understand the term “non-perishable” or did not read the question carefully so answers like smoothies were written. We will need to change the formatting of the question to make it clear that vending machines can only carry non-perishable foods. One last thing to note is that we used a paper per survey. To save paper and money, we will be adding two survey per paper.

Foggy Morning on UBC Campus

Research and Project Process and Progress

We are slowly progressing with our research. Each one of us has been busy studying for midterms and writing non-LFS research papers these past two weeks. Now that the hardest weeks of the term are  almost behind us, we will have time to focus strictly on the CBEL project and find ways to improve the Gage Snack Vending Model. Our itinerary for this week is to meet up with Victoria, and hopefully our TA Lorne. If not, an email will be sent  to her at the latest tomorrow evening. Once our surveys are approved by Victoria, they will be distributed next week. Each member of the group will be responsible to hand out at least 40 surveys on different parts of the campus. Some of us will focus on the SUB while others will focus on different libraries across campus. We hope everything goes well with the survey distribution, and we will let you all know the outcomes next week.

The sun here in Vancouver has vanished and the thick fog has taken over the UBC campus. We hope the fog doesn’t change your decision to walk around outside and watch the last of the colorful leaves drop to the ground. Winter is just around the corner!

Happy Wednesday!

Group 26

Summary of Research Proposal Presentation

On Wednesday our group had to present our research proposal, summarized below:

Our group will be taking steps to assess the current healthy snacks offered in UBC vending machines under the Gage Snack Vending Model (GSVM). This research is being conducted in order to understand what aspects of the GSVM work versus what aspects need work, and to incorporate community feedback into its design. Our aim is to find a working compromise between consumer preferences and what healthy options the vendor is able to bring in. The GSVM’s introduction was a positive change, but the model is not yet ideal so to follow-up and continue developing the GSVM, our CBEL project will focus on the following:

1. What improvements can be made to the Gage Snack Vending Model already in place on UBC campus?
2. How can the scope of the model be expanded to include beverage vending machines?

Vending Machine Taken by Tyra Duggan

Our research will be conducted using qualitative (observation) and quantitative (surveying) methods. In this mixed-method design, the benefits of using both allow us to answer our exploratory research questions through detailed note-taking (a qualitative approach), while still being able to compile meaningful statistics about our research population through surveys (quantitative analyses). Key sources of information we will use are past research done by LFS students on UBC vending machines, the Healthy Choice Vending Machine Policy, communications with our community contact, and the Coca-Cola Canada website.

To begin our research, we will perform an audit on all GSVM and beverage vending machines to see how closely the HCVMP is being followed. In addition, we will be looking at sales, correct signage, and cleanliness. Our audit will be followed by observation of consumer habits at the vending machines. We will then use surveys throughout the campus to retrieve information on community preferences. The surveys will mainly consist of ranked questions, with one or two open-ended questions. We will also conduct taste-tests for already-available healthy products (as per the GSVM) to determine which are well-liked and worth keeping.

We created a timeline to help us organize our time and accomplish our goals. Listed below is a general summary of our expected outcomes:

Autumn Leaves After Some Rain Taken by Rosemary Wright

October

• Review the BC ministry policy
• Conduct audit on GVSM machines and beverage machines
• Conduct surveys at different locations across UBC campus

November

• We will report group CBEL findings and analyze the survey
• Arrange a final meeting with Victoria and Liska
• Divide the work for the CBEL project final report
• Divide the work to prepare and rehearse the CBEL project plenary presentation.

By following our work plan, we hope to efficiently meet our project goals: determining any current problems with the GSVM, and suggesting changes to establish a better working model for snack and beverage vending.

What we Learned as a Group from our Proposal Presentation

We received much feedback from our substitute TA after the presentation. First and foremost, our research questions, which was composed of several questions was refined to two very specific questions. By having more specific questions, we can directly navigate our attention to what our goals are. We also considered some questions that can be incorporated into our surveys. Three questions will be asked: 1) When was the last time you used a Gage Snack vending machine? 2) How often do you use vending machines? and 3) When have you bought snacks from the vending machine?

A Sunny Autumn Day near the MacMillan Building on UBC Campus Taken by Rosemary Wright

What to Expect Next

Our group will be navigating the reading group discussion this week on an article: Should We Go Home to Eat?: toward a Reflexive Politics of Localism written by E. Melanie DuPuis and David Goodman. The authors’ main point in this paper is that the term “local” is too ambiguous, and by not being clearly defined, localism as a political movement is resulting in unreflexive localism as demonstrated by the local food movements in the US and the EU, leading to potentially undemocratic and unrepresentative solutions. The next main point is about inequality: Food reform is largely being controlled by consumers of particular class and ethnicity. This is a problem because corporations are taking advantage of and minorities are not being considered. Like previously mentioned, we will lead a critical discussion based on this article on Wednesday.

As for our CBEL project, now that we have a clear understanding of what we are planning to accomplish, we will plan a group meeting in the near future to discuss potential survey questions among other things. We are expected to finish our survey questions and have them ready to distribute to students for the following week. As we plan our surveys and taste test, we will be taking some time off to enjoy the holiday with our family and friends.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Group 26