Research Problem: What all are the factors which increase a college students propensity to

pay for healthy food items?

The research problem in consideration majorly focuses on the propensity to pay for a price
premium for healthy substitutes of snacks from the perspective of college going students .

An extensive secondary research and focused group discussion , the following factors have
been identified as the dependent , independent and control variables .

Variable Type Variable Name Variable Description Proxies Scale

Dependent Price premium Price premium denotes No proxy required Ratio Scale
Variable the extra amount that .Determined
the respondents will be through
willing to pay for moving experimentation.
towards health
conscious food from the
normal food that they
consume.
Independent Ingredients - Mix Ingredients-Mix refers to No proxy required None
Variable the type of ingredients
that are used in the
product. The main
objective here is to
determine how the
choice of the type of
ingredients : organic or
artificial , the quality of
ingredients etc will
affect the behaviour of
the respondents
towards healthy food.
Independent Brand Identity Brand Identity refers to No proxy required None
Variable the brand of the food
item being tested. This
will help us understand
how the brand attached
with the food item
influences the decision
of paying a price
premium.
Independent Product Benefits This variable tests the No proxy required None
Variable affect that specific
product benefits like
disease prevention and
low calorie count have
on the willingness to pay
of the consumers.
Control Variable Demographic The secondary research No proxy required Gender -
variables like gender , data suggests that food nominal
age and education preferences vary across Age - Ratio
different age groups, Scale
genders and also
depend on the
education of the
respondents .
Controlling these factors
will help us predict the
propensity to pay a price
premium with greater
accuracy.
Control Variable Annual Family Income The annual family Types of assets Nominal Scale
income of a similar possessed.
group of respondents Different
should be comparable categories of
so that personal assets like
expenditure does not microwave , Air
form a major factor in conditioner , Car
determining the amount etc.
of premium paid.
Control Variable Family Influence Before conducting the Monthly medical Ratio Scale
experiment , it is expenses
essential to ensure that Frequency of visits
the respondent does not to the doctors
exhibit special behaviour
due to existing health
conditions in his own
family.
Control Variable Specific Health It is essential to make Monthly medical Ratio Scale
Conditions sure that the expenses
respondent does not Frequency of visits
suffer from an specific to the doctors
health conditions due to
which he exhibits more
consciousness towards
his health than his
normal tendency.
Control Variable Health Consciousness This variable basically is Frequency of going Ratio Scale
used to control and to the gym in past
segregate the people week
who pay high attention Whether any sport Nominal Scale
towards their health and has been played in
work regularly towards the last week
maintaining it and the Average daily Ratio Scale
ones who are slightly expenditure on
casual towards their outlets like Bishu
 health. Da and Dadus
Frequency of going Ratio Scale
out for eating in a
week
Control Variable Product Taste While trying to test with No proxy required None
different food items like
organic food items and
the normal ones , the
taste of both the items
should be comparable in
nature so that the
difference in taste does
not create a bias
towards a particular
type of food item.
Control Variable Schedule of In order to maintain No proxy required None
respondents accuracy in the tests
conducted , it will be
assured that there is not
major exam or event
scheduled close to the
date on which the study
is conducted.

Segmentation of respondents into cohorts :

This part of the questionnaire will focus into segmenting the respondents into different cohorts
majorly along the lines of the various control variables that are used for experimentation
purpose.