by Andrea Adriatico, Bea Fider, Carissa Lim, Luigi Ocampo, Steph Tan and Sophie Villasfer

How much on average does an Ateneo de Manila

student spend on lunch meals per day?
I. Background
Lunchtime is one
of the busiest times on
campus in Ateneo de Ma-
nila. Most students includ-
ing most of the personnel
and faculty take a break
during this time to eat and
recharge before continu-
ing with their day. Lunch
should be a simple matter
of buying and eating but
given that the students‟
work on a budget, it be-
comes a complex matter
with many factors to con-
sider. Where is the factor in how good the
cheapest place to get food is. For each and
lunch? Can I buy food every student, the reason
with my budget for the is different and the way
day? Can I buy food and students think may have
have some money left an effect on how they
over to use for other spend their money and
things? where do they spend it.
Also in correlation, stu-
Some students dents not only use their
decide where to eat money just for food but
based on distance to their also for other things. Most
next class. Others choose of the time extra money is
based on how expensive spent on photocopies,
the food is. Yet others textbooks, and other
school related materials
As researchers, we‟d like
to examine how the stu-
dents spend their money
based on several factors
like whether or not they
are dormers, the amount
of allowance and where
they eat. We‟d also like to
see if students are able to
save a part of their money
for other things after
spending for their meals.

II. Objectives
1. The research aims to be able to do the following:
To reveal on average how much an Ateneo de Manila
student spends his or her money for lunch meals.

2. To study if there is a correlation between the amount

spent on lunch meals to living arrangements and total
allowance amount.

3. To study if the venues where students usually eat

have an effect on the amount of money spent on lunch
meals.

III. Assumptions
The study was conducted under the assumption
that students don‟t spend all their allowance on lunch
meals. This meant students should have the opportu-
nity to be able to save a portion of their allowance, for
whatever other use. It also assumes that non-dormers
generally spend for lunch meals the most, and thus the
survey has been limited to lunch meals only.
IV. Methodology V. Analysis

The survey contained two specific types of ques-

tions. The first two concentrating on characteristics of
the respondents which the research assumed would in-
fluence the answers to the last three questions. Thus
the independent variables were as questions concerning
the respondent‟s living arrangement and the amount of
his/her allowance. While the dependent variables were
on the respondent‟s preference of lunch location, opin-
ion of the food prices and their ability to save a percent-
age of their allowance. The questions were specifically
asked of the students from Ateneo de Manila Univer-
sity. The questions were as followed: 56% of the respondents live with their families.
The researchers believe that it is safe to assume that
this is related to the reason why majority of the respon-
dent‟s allowance fall in the range of P151-P250, be-
cause their family pays for their meals outside school
hours.
1. What are your living arrangements?
There was an unequal amount of respondents
__ Dorming inside the campus belonging in the category of dormers and non-
__ Dorming outside the campus dormers. For this reason, the researchers believed that
__ Living with family this survey would not be accurate in terms of equally
__ Other: comparing whether or not dormers and non-dormers
really have the same opinion regarding their food ex-
penditures.
2. How much is your allowance a day?

______________________

3. On average, where do you eat?

__ Gonzaga __ Katipunan
__ JSEC __ Bring own baon
__ Cervini
__ ISO

4. Do you feel that the food you spend for is

too expensive?

__ Yes __ No

64% of the respondents feel that the food that

5. Are you still able to save a percentage of
your allowance?
__ Yes __ No
The survey was manually distributed to fifty random students in vari-
ous places within the campus on April 19, 2011.
they buy isn‟t that expensive and 87.5% of this comes
from students who live with their families. What the re-
searchers found interesting was how 35.8% of students
who lived with their families still felt that the food that
they were buying was still expensive. This could be be-
cause of the approximated 32% of students who buy
food from other places (i.e., JSEC, Katipunan etc) in
which prices could be higher than Gonzaga. This could
also be because of the different perceptions of
„expensive‟ by each individual based on cultural up-
bringing etc.
 spend for meals everyday.

The table above shows the results of the stu-

dent‟s allowance and their opinion on whether or not
they feel the meals are too expensive. 62% of the sur-
82% of the respondents answered that they vey respondents answered “No”. From Table A1, it has
were able to save a percentage of their allowance. The been observed that most students choose to eat in Gon-
researchers realized that no viable conclusion could be zaga. The data in this table justifies that students
drawn due to the following reasons: the idea of „saving choose to eat there because of the acceptable price
money‟ can be subject to open interpretation by the re- range.
spondents since a definite standard was not given by
the survey. This means that different respondents may
have different idea of how to save money, or how many
percent would be considered as „saving‟ for this particu-
lar study. A clear goal for saving was also no specified
within the survey, and thus it becomes unclear to both
respondents and researchers the reason why there is a
need to save money in the first place. It could be for
some individuals that their allowance is strictly for food
and thus they see no need to save. The earlier as-
sumption of how a student‟s allowance encompasses Based on the collected data, 84% of the respon-
expenditure beyond food then was proved faulty. dents are able to save money. Though specific conclu-
sions cannot be drawn because with the same reasons
as stated from the analysis of third table.

VI. Conclusion
In conclusion, this objective platform of com-
research has shown that parison for the two cate-
From table above which shows the results of since majority of students gories was not present in
amount of allowance and the choice of lunch venue, live with their families, this survey. This could be
majority of the respondent‟s allowance ranges from they do not feel that their because they avail the
P151-P250. The researchers believe that the reason for food expenditure is ex- services of Gonzaga,
this is because majority of the respondents live with pensive. Even students which the researchers
their families, and thus most probably does not pay for who live in dormitories believe have the most
both breakfast and dinner with their allowances. Also inside or outside the cam- r e a s o n a b l e
from the data, it could be seen that majority of the re- pus did not have a signifi- prices. Because of this,
spondents choose to buy their food from Gonzaga. Due cant difference in opinion, students believe that they
to the lack of data, the researchers had to step in and but then there were sig- are able to save a portion
infer the following: it could be due to the convenient lo- nificantly less respon- of their allowance for
cation that most students decide to eat in the Gonzaga dents who lived in dormi- other uses not specified
cafeteria. This may also be because of the wider variety tories than with their fami- in this study.
of food available and relatively cheaper price as com- lies. This meant that an
pared to other cafeterias. It was also observed how
there were only 4 respondents who brought their own
lunches to school. meaning that majority of the students
VII. Generalization
The generalization that has been reached was that the student population of Ateneo de Manila University
deemed their food choices inexpensive, or at the very least acceptable to their budget.

VIII. Recommendations

1. If the time and resource permits, a bigger sample size has to be used to be able to gather more ac-
curate data. Given the large population of the Ateneo community, a sample size of 50 students
were not enough to be able to garner accurate data to represent the whole community.

2. It is also recommended to get the respondent‟s reasons for choosing a particular area to regularly buy
their food. This is would be able to back up the inferences made by the researchers and the able to find
more specific reasons to further explain the choices made by the students.

3. It is also recommended for future researchers to have more comprehensive standards for concepts
like „expensive‟ and „saving money‟ because such terms are subject to individual interpretation that
could be influenced by culture, upbringing etc. that may lead to inaccurate conclusions.

IX. Image Sources

 http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/
uploads/2010/01/0707dp_10_z+2007_July_diesel_industry_news+hamburger.jpg

 http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?
fbid=148141028581759&set=a.134295653299630.25115.107899815939214&type=1&ref=nf