The use of latent growth curve modeling in measuring student perceptions about mandatory work experiences

The study reported here investigated how hospitality students’ perceptions of a required hospitality industry work experience changed over time. By means of an experience sampling method, we captured information about the students’ emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, psychological withdrawal, and performance on an ongoing basis over a 9-week period during which they were required to work weekly shifts in 2 campus hotels. We found that whereas job satisfaction and job performance followed a linear decrease over time, psychological withdrawal followed a linear increase. Prior work expectations predicted the students’ initial levels of job satisfaction and psychological withdrawal. We elaborate on the benefits and future uses in hospitality research of latent growth curve analysis and experience sampling, which are relatively unexplored data collection and analytical tools in the field of hospitality management that enable researchers to measure trajectories of change in subjects’ attitudes and Q4 perceptions over time.