The effects of secondary school food and beverage students' quality perceptions, attidutes towrads industry and satisfaction with education on their intention to proceed

In Turkey, gastronomy and food & beverage education is delivered within the range of secondary school to graduate and postgraduate levels. In order not to waste the resources provided for vocational education by both families and the state, graduates are expected to take part in employment or higher levels of education in their fields. Therefore, the intention of tourism students to proceed in higher education or industrial employment is pivotal to this study's research model. More specifically, this study focuses on the secondary school education and aims at exploring the impacts of students' satisfaction with and quality perceptions of current education on their intention to proceed in industrial employment and/or higher education in food and beverage field. Moreover, the study also investigates whether students' attitudes towards food and beverage industry moderates the relationship between satisfaction and intention to proceed. The data gathered from 2198 students who study food and beverage at vocational secondary schools in Ankara. Students' quality perceptions of education that they currently receive was measured with SERVPERF scale while appropriate scales from the relevant literature were employed and modified in order to gauge students' satisfaction levels, their attitudes towards the industry and intentions to proceed in tourism higher education or industrial employment. The data were analyzed with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) following a test of measurement model with confirmatory factor analysis. The findings revealed that dimensions of SERVPERF including physical quality, confidence, eagerness and empathy had a positive effect on satisfaction with education. Furthermore, both students' satisfaction levels and attitude towards food and beverage industry had an impact on their intentions to proceed. However, the findings also indicated that the effect of students' attitude towards industry was greater than satisfaction. Finally, analysis for testing the moderation relations revealed that students' attitude towards industry was a moderator in the relationship between satisfaction and intention to proceed. Relying on the findings of current research, it is recommended that similar research studies can be carried out on higher education students or even on current employees in the tourism industry outside Ankara, especially in tourist destinations. Keywords: Secondary education, attendance intention, service quality perception, satisfaction, sector perception, food and beverage training.