Service expectations and performance evaluation in sport child camps: participants and parents' perspectives

Abstract - Aim: The current study aims to examine the differences between service expectations and service performance evaluation in sport child camps among participants and their parents. Methods: Data were collected from 258 sport child camp participants and 226 parents, before and after the camp experience, to obtain their service expectations and service performance evaluations, respectively. Paired samples t tests were conducted to examine whether a significant difference existed between expectations and performance evaluations among both participants and parents. Results: Significant differences were found between participants’ expectations and performance evaluations regarding Contact with Physical Environmental, Food and Fun. For parents, significant differences were found between expectations and performance evaluations regarding Staff, Activities Program, Service Failures and Recovery, and Food. In general, participants had higher expectations than their evaluations of the service delivered by sport child camp. In turn, parents evaluated the service performance with higher scores than their initial expectations of the sport child camp. Conclusion: This study represents an advance in the knowledge about participants and parents’ expectations with the sport child camp services and highlights the importance of contrasting expectations and performance of the service. The results allow sport child camp managers to diagnose where improvements should be targeted and are useful to identify strengths and weaknesses of service quality.