Publication Date
2025
Presentation Length
15 minutes
College
Jack C. Massey College of Business
Department
Economics and Finance
Student Level
Undergraduate
SPARK Category
Research
Faculty Advisor
Dr. Dustin Rumbuagh
SPARK Session
Economics with Colin Cannonier
Presentation Type
Article
Summary
Belmont University has a number of dining options available for its students, faculty, staff, and the public. These on-campus dining options include well-known fast food restaurant chains in the United States such as Starbucks Coffee, Chick-fil-a, and Einstein Bros. Bagels. Members of Belmont University who pay for a specific 'meal plan ' have full access to these on-campus options in addition to an all-inclusive dining hall, which is also open to the public for $12.50.
The available meal plans for students, faculty, and staff vary in value and offerings. Some variations offer a fixed number of ‘swipes’, which is a prepaid entrance into the dining hall, ranging from unlimited to 125 per semester. These swipes gain students access into the dining hall which has a number of options within itself and has no limit to how much food a student can eat. Meal plans also offer ‘Dining Dollars’, which is an alternative way to pay for any of the on-campus dining options. These can range in monetary value from $150 to $475 in credit. Additionally, students may have the option to use these swipes on a meal at any of the available on-campus restaurant chains via the equivalency program. However, a meal at any of these options must be below a designated monetary value depending on each location, otherwise a student will have to pay the remaining balance by cash, card, dining dollars, or Bruin Bucks, an alternative form of payment similar to that of a debit card but only useable on Belmont University’s campus. In summary, a swipe to the dining hall, valued at approximately $12.50, can also get a student a meal at any of the on-campus restaurants so long as it is below $8.00.
In the nascent field of behavioral economics, there are copious amounts of research done on perception of value and how consumers experience transactional utility when making big and small financial decisions. The same research can be done at Belmont University, focusing on which meal offering students feel they benefit from most depending on how it is proposed to them. This experiment looks to use two disparate principles courses on microeconomics as both the control and treatment groups. Each group will be provided with a different statement or a scenario that breaks down a number of options for lunch on a particular day. One class, the control group, will be influenced to make the correct financial decision (given that they think rationally) by being provided with the monetary value of each lunch option available for that day. The other class, the treatment group, will be presented with the same options, but the monetary values attached to each option will be omitted from the scenario, making the decision less obvious.
It can be assumed that the experiment will yield results that contradict traditional economic theory, proving that students will be more likely to make worse financial decisions without any subtle influences. The most appropriate method to statistically express these results is through a Logistic regression, which is used to predict a categorical outcome based on one or more predictor variables, thus modeling the relationship between the variables and the probability of the outcome.
This experiment looks to highlight the impact that a subtle influence can have on the perceived value of a transaction through changes in phrasing. The on-campus dining options and offered meal plans at Belmont University bring forward an opportunity to determine what drives college students' financial decisions, albeit on a smaller scale.
Recommended Citation
Schonland, Joshua and King, Delaney, "Exploring Perceived Value: An Analysis of Belmont University's Dining Options" (2025). SPARK Symposium Presentations. 185.
https://repository.belmont.edu/spark_presentations/185
