Abstract

Educators are challenged every day to continuously improve the quality of their teaching methods in order to meet the expectations of their students, the customer. In the hospitality management department of a major urban university, the teaching of quality service in a dining room management laboratory setting lacks a formal and quantifiable feedback system to measure guest satisfaction. Such a feedback system is hypothesized to have an impact on the student's learning of quality service delivery. A literature review discusses information concerning quality service management, customer satisfaction measurement, and a detailing of a procedural and convivial service dimensions model as it relates to dining room management and employee involvement. The research is quasi-experimental in that a convenience sample of all hospitality students enrolled in the three sections of a dining room management and operations course were divided into one control group and two experimental groups. Forty-seven students completed pre- and post-test questionnaires during the Spring 1993 semester regarding their perceptions of the importance to management of various selected service standards. In the experimental groups, a formalized guest comment card was issued to dining room guests and a guest satisfaction index was calculated after each dining room session. The resulting GSI was fed back to the students. Learning of quality service delivery did occur among the students. However, the data is inconclusive as to the impact of the formal feedback mechanism. Further research into this subject is recommended. A discussion is included concerning the application of this data to two quality service models: Procedural and Convivial Quality Service Dimensions (Martin, 1991) and SERVQUAL (Zeithaml, et.al, 1990).

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Restaurant management--Study and teaching; Customer services

Publication Date

1993

Document Type

Thesis

Department, Program, or Center

School of Food, Hotel and Tourism Management (CAST)

Advisor

Marecki, Richard

Comments

Note: imported from RIT’s Digital Media Library running on DSpace to RIT Scholar Works. Physical copy available through RIT's The Wallace Library at: TX911.5 .S33 1993

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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