摘要：The purpose of the present study is to describe the use of two focus groups to identify and refine a set of questionnaire items. They were also used to provide descriptions of lived experiences and to realize the importance, or not, of the use of Vending Machines in the university context. Vending Machines consumer students from different areas of knowledge participated on a voluntary basis (economics and management areas define the fist group, and engineering and marketing the second group). Based on the data collection and analysis it was possible to identify the attributes of vending machines that are important on both marketing and operations management in the performance of this type of machines. The participants, despite having lived bad experiences, consider their involvement useful, important, advantageous, necessary and interesting. Performance, efficiency, level of service, flexibility and availability for the needs of consumers were also identified.
