1 Executive Summary

The aim of this investigation is to collect data which outlines the financial, emotional and academic impacts experienced by university students when buying food on campus. According to the obtained data, we discovered that the majority of students avoid buying food. This deterrence was shown to be caused by the negative effects associated with food purchase, with food buyers reporting financial and emotional impairment and food bringers benefiting in these regards. Surprisingly, little students reported being academically impaired by these decisions.


2 IDA

2.1 Source of Data

The source of this data is a SurveyMonkey survey that was disseminated to the DATA1001 cohort at the University of Sydney through Ed, as well as to other individuals outside of the cohort, through a direct link to the survey. The survey can be found here.

2.1.1 Ethics

There are few ethical concerns over the collection of data concerning students’ buying habits while on campus through a survey. The main consideration with this form of data collection would be unintentionally revealing a responder’s financial status if any personal information is not removed correctly and accurately. This survey mitigates this concern by not collecting any identifying information aside from the university, age, and gender of the responder, identifying individual responses using a simple numbering system.

2.1.2 Reliability and Bias

Surveys are inherently not the most reliable form of data collection, as they require responders to be honest and accurate in their answers. However, a large enough sample size can mitigate this issue of reliability by virtue of the larger ratio of honest responses compared to dishonest ones. There would also be a bias in our results as the majority of students answering the survey were from the University of Sydney, skewing the results in favour of the financial decisions of these students. It therefore cannot provide an accurate picture of the average university student in Sydney.

2.1.3 Limitations

The findings of our data, despite showing clear trends, are limited for various reasons. One reason being the insufficiency of the sample size (24 individuals) which has impaired the validity of our findings. Another limitation is acknowledged in the information gaps that arise when the subjects had to type in their response. This caused our insights into their decision making processes to lack consistency. Furthermore, the survey doesn’t account for dishonest or incomplete answers. These issues can stem from the respondents’ difficulty or reluctance in conveying true feelings and emotions. This is particularly important as it jeopardises our ability to achieve the aim of our investigation - to gain insight into how students’ food purchasing choices impact their emotional wellbeing, academic functioning and financial status.

2.2 Complexity of Data and Classification of Variables

2.2.1 Variables that were assessed

There were ten (10) variables that were assessed. They were:

  • University

  • Age

  • Gender

  • Student type (full-time, part-time) (domestic, international)

  • Frequency of food buying

  • Reasons for not buying food on campus

  • Financial effect of decision whether to buy food on campus

  • Emotional effect of decision whether to buy food on campus

  • Mental effect of decision whether to buy food on campus

  • Academic effect of decision whether to buy food on campus

2.2.2 Classification of variables

Below is the classification of the above variables as read by rStudio.

## 'data.frame':    24 obs. of  11 variables:
##  $ ï..Response.No.        : int  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...
##  $ University             : Factor w/ 3 levels "Macquarie University",..: 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 1 3 ...
##  $ Age                    : Factor w/ 4 levels "18 or under",..: 1 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 ...
##  $ Gender                 : Factor w/ 2 levels "Female","Male": 2 2 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 ...
##  $ StudentType            : Factor w/ 3 levels "Full-time domestic",..: 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
##  $ FrequencyOfFoodBuying  : Factor w/ 5 levels "Every day","Never",..: 5 3 5 3 3 3 2 3 3 3 ...
##  $ ReasonsForNotBuyingFood: Factor w/ 4 levels "","Cheaper","Cheaper and more healthy",..: 1 1 1 1 3 2 2 2 1 1 ...
##  $ FinancialImpact        : Factor w/ 5 levels "","Extremely positively",..: 3 3 3 5 5 5 2 5 3 4 ...
##  $ EmotionalImpact        : Factor w/ 5 levels "","Extremely positively",..: 4 4 3 5 4 5 4 3 4 4 ...
##  $ MentalImpact           : Factor w/ 5 levels "","Extremely positively",..: 4 4 3 4 4 5 4 4 4 4 ...
##  $ AcademicImpact         : Factor w/ 4 levels "","Negatively",..: 3 2 3 3 4 4 3 2 3 3 ...

2.3 Stakeholders

Within this investigation, our purpose of data collection based on students’ purchasing behaviours on campus places us in the position of the primary stakeholders. However, the data collection from the survey would be of great interest to on campus food vendors. Discovering the trend of common purchasing behaviour of food on campus will allow cafes and stores to adjust the prices and variety of food products to allow for the most convenience for students to maximise their academic functioning. University health campaigns that prioritise the wellbeing of students can potentially utilise the data collection to inform individuals on the importance of nutrition and diet to study effectively by studying the common trends of purchasing behaviour and then promoting alternative and healthier methods to food convenience.

2.4 Data Summary

  • Our data came from a survey posted on the DATA1001 Ed board.
  • The data is not valid because the sample size is very small, and is biased towards students of the University of Sydney, so cannot inform our understanding of the average university student in Sydney.
  • Possible issues may include ethical concerns of the investigation due to the unintentional reveal of the students’ financial status. Surveys are also not considered the most reliable form of data collection as not all respondents willingly reveal the most accurate information on their spending habits, a factor further affected by the insufficiency of the sample size. Thus, causing our data to be considered less valid as it jeopardises our capacity to fulfil the true aim of gaining insight into the purchasing behaviours of students and how these actions impact their wellbeing and financial status.
  • Each row represents an individual response to the survey.
  • Each column represents one of the variables being assessed.

Below is a table of the data:


3 Research Question 1: Do students tend to buy food on campus? If so, how often?

From the survey, we can see that students do tend to buy food on campus. The survey responses revealed that 25% (6 responders) never spent money on food, 50% of the participants (12 responders) bought food occasionally, approximately 17% (4 responders) bought food often and approximately 8% of participants (2 responders) bought food everday.

Below is a graph summarising the results:

The survey question that addressed the possible reasons one would avoid buying food revealed that their choices are deeply dependent on expenses, coming to be the primary factor influencing students’ decisions. To a lesser degree, the availability of healthy options and different food varieties deterred students from buying on campus foods. However, the survey’s data collection was limited in its ability to reveal the impact of tertiary institutions’ influence upon students’ eating habits. Thus, we are unable to see a correlation of university health campaigns with the participant’s purchasing behaviours on campus. Furthermore, the survey results indicate a necessary shift towards more affordable options in order to recognise students within special circumstances that hinder their ability to conveniently prepare leftover food or bring packed lunches.

Ryan Tam’s investigation into students’ eating habits (Tam, Yassa, Parker, O’Connor, & Allman-Farinelli, 2017), provides related insight into the common trend of eating behaviours on campus. The research highlighted the effect of university health campaigns upon eating behaviours of students on campus, a factor that the survey’s data collection failed to portray. Professor Tam’s research also contrasted to the results of the recent survey as it revealed out of their students surveyed, 93% admitted to regularly purchasing food on campus, which was also influenced by convenience, price and value. These factors were also common within our survey’s results as a majority of the 24 participants expressed their dissatisfaction with the price of campus food and the lack of variety provided.

Bibliography: Tam, R., Yassa, B., Parker, H., O’Connor, H., & Allman-Farinelli, M. (2017). University students’ on-campus food purchasing behaviors, preferences, and opinions on food availability. Nutrition, 37, 7 - 13. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0899900716301277


4 Research question 2: How does this choice concerning whether to buy food on campus impact students?

4.1 An analysis of the financial and emotional effects of this decision.

The obtained data shows clear evidence that a student’s choice to buy food on campus can either have a positive or negative financial impact, depending on their decision (i.e. the more often they buy food, the greater the negative effect). Overall, all cases of buying food were shown to have negative effects on the students financial status. To elaborate, 18 of the 24 survey participants claimed to only buy food occasionally or never. The positive impact this had on their finances remains to be a salient finding in the data, with all “food-bringing” individuals claiming to financially benefit from this decision. This in turn provoked a positive emotional response with students being remarkably assured in their decisions.


Conversely all students considered to be “food-buyers” reported that the decision to purchase food was financially detrimental. To provide more detail, “food-buyers” formed the minority of the survey participants, representing only 6 of the 24. Of these participants, all of them reported that this lifestyle resulted in hard financial repercussions, taking significant chunks of money out of their income on a daily basis. This caused a knock-on effect with their mood as well, with all food bringers reporting higher stress levels and bitter attitudes towards losing money. As the study has distinguished between food bringers and food buyers, the financial impact of buying food on campus was made abundantly clear through the comparison of the 2 groups. Buying food was shown to have an unquestionably negative financial impact on students whereas bringing food was shown to be beneficial for students saving abilities.


As this evidence represents a degree of suffering experienced around food purchase it reveals the necessity in initiating a change to the current situation of food prices on campus, as well as the necessity to promote university health campaigns that have the purpose of influencing individuals to prioritise health over the convenience of less healthy food sold at these institutions, consequently revealing the potential to shift students’ purchasing habits to instead consider alternative options to conveniently buying food.