Developing a Catering Quality Scale for University Canteens in China: From the Perspective of Food Safety
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The study is aimed to define a catering quality scale for university canteens in China; it is based on a literature analysis, a Delphi approach and a questionnaire survey.
However, there would seem to be a need for some even more detailed information on both the questionnaire survey and the Delphi approach.
It might be interesting to know how the sample and the respondents were selected, and what are the different types and sizes of the university canteens considered in the survey (the expression “more than 40 schools and institutions” is not completely clear and needs to be detailed).
Finally, it might be useful to add more detailed information about the composition of the panel of experts (e.g. professional role and position, affiliation, expertise) involved in Delphi analysis.
More generally, there is a need to better describe the sample of colleges (and college canteens) considered in the survey in relation to any regional, ethnic or cultural differences.
Author Response
To editor and reviewers:
Thank you for sending me comments and suggestions, I had revise and add some comments and sentences. The reviewers could check revised sentences in the revise paper.
To reviewer 1:
- There would seem to be a need for some even more detailed information on both the questionnaire survey and the Delphi approach. Finally, it might be useful to add more detailed information about the composition of the panel of experts (e.g. professional role and position, affiliation, expertise) involved in Delphi analysis.
Ans: I had added some information about the experts for Delphi analysis. Please see revised paper.
I had added as below.
3.1 Data collection, item generation, and content validity assessment
The process of creating project samples, collecting data, purifying measurement, collecting data again, assessing its performance, and constructing a formal project is known as scale development (Churchill, 1979). This study employs a literature analysis to create preliminary indicators of the catering quality of Chinese college canteens, resulting in an initial database of 88 indicators based on relevant domestic and foreign literature. Expert review was performed to assess the content’s efficacy using the enhanced Delphi approach. A total of 35 experts and scholars were invited, including seven government officials for catering supervision, 17 course teachers for teaching culinary and 11 restaurant chefs. They have worked for more than 5 years. Three sets of questions were assessed by 35 specialists, who looked for repetition and content ambiguity. This method resulted in the elimination of 18 questions, leaving 70 for future investigation. Finally, 23 questions on catering safety management, 10 questions on employee hygiene management, 8 questions on catering service, 8 questions on food quality, 11 questions on environmental atmosphere, and 10 questions on corporate social responsibility were obtained. The original question bank is included in the questionnaire for future study. Further, a five-point Likert scale was used, ranging from “very inadequate” (1 point) to “extremely adept” (5 points).
- It might be interesting to know how the sample and the respondents were selected, and what are the different types and sizes of the university canteens considered in the survey (the expression “more than 40 schools and institutions” is not completely clear and needs to be detailed).
Ans: I had added some school information, please see revised paper and below.
Canteen employees, primarily from Chinese universities, are the respondents for this study’s questionnaire. The questionnaire was collected via convenience sampling from more than 40 schools and institutions in Northeast, Central, and Southern China, which would be open for completion from Nov. 2020 through Jan. 2021. Sampling distribution of the schools depend on the number of faculty and students including 1/3 have more than 30,000, 1/3 has 10,000-30,000, and 1/3 has fewer than 10,000. These schools are all provide cafeteria and set menu. The pre-test research was undertaken as a research survey with infield practitioners who worked in Chinese university canteens for more than half a year. 298 questionnaires were effectively returned. An item analysis was conducted for each item, including mean, skewness, extreme group comparison, item-total correlation, and factor loading. The tools for 48 items were gathered and refined without any deletions, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) used variance extreme rotation to minimize the number of items. Simultaneously, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) reduced the number of components by using a maximum rotation of variance. A total of 1,302 official questionnaires were provided when the questionnaire prediction was completed, and 844 were successfully retrieved. The overall recovery rate for the formal questionnaire was 64.8 percent.
- More generally, there is a need to better describe the sample of colleges (and college canteens) considered in the survey in relation to any regional, ethnic or cultural differences.
Ans: The restaurants selected in this study are mainly student cafeterias, which cannot be differentiated for different types of restaurants. It has been added to the research limitation and future research. Please see the revised file, and see as below.
More than 40 colleges and universities have not been classified, and this conclusion cannot represent the quality of catering in all college canteens. In addition, it has not been able to classify the attributes of the restaurant, whether there may be differences in catering quality due to different races, culture or ethnic. Therefore, it is suggested that future researchers conduct in-depth research based on the classification of different types or different sizes of university canteens in China.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Please, follow my comments and questions.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
To editor and reviewer 2:
Thank you for sending me comments and suggestions, I had revise and add some comments and sentences. The reviewers could check revised sentences in the revise paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
In my opinion the article has been sufficiently improved.
Thanks to the Authors for their effort.
