College student performance and credit card usage

Journal of College Student Development, Jan/Feb 2001 by Pinto, Mary Beth, Parente, Diane H, Palmer, Todd Starr

Instrument

A three-stage process was employed to develop the research instrument. First, we conducted a thorough literature review of extant research on credit consumerism, college student spending patterns, and college student attitudes toward credit (Blair, 1997; Campbell-Rock, 1992; Kara, 1994; Omelia, 1998; Souccar, 1998). Second, two focus groups, composed of a total of 15 undergraduate college students, were conducted. The students were asked to discuss their lifestyles and spending habits-specifically, how they spent their time and their money. Particular attention was directed toward the students' attitudes toward credit and perceived benefits and drawbacks of credit. In the third stage of the process, a questionnaire was developed drawing on the information gained from the secondary research and insights for the exploratory research. The questionnaire was pretested using approximately 50 college students in an entrylevel marketing course. Follow-up interviews were conducted with approximately 10 students to ascertain any problems with wording or understanding. The survey was revised based on the pretesting results.

Perceived Need to Work and Perceived Impact of Employment on Academic Performance. To assess college students' perceived need to work to pay off their credit cards and the Perceived Impact of Employment on Academic Performance, participants completed two single-item measures: "I find myself having to work more hours to pay off my credit cards," and, "If I was not working so many hours at my job, I would do better in school." On both items, respondents indicated their agreement with the statements on 5-point Likert-type scales ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

Anxiety Toward Credit Card Usage. Pinto et al. (2000) identified three factors in Attitude Toward Credit Card Usage: (a) Knowledge of Benefits and Drawbacks of Credit Card Use, (b) Anxiety About Credit, and (c) Access to Credit. In this paper, we specifically focused on the second factor, Anxiety About Credit. Anxiety was measured by three items with statements such as, "Whenever I use a credit card I worry about paying it off." On all items, respondents indicated their agreement with statements on 5-point Likert-type scales ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The coefficient alpha for this factor was .64. Although this coefficient alpha is lower than the fixed standard value of .70 suggested by Nunnally (1978), Carmines and Zeller (1979) contended that for exploratory studies employing new scales, a more relaxed standard is acceptable.

Procedure

The research was conducted at three colleges in the Northeast during the academic year of 19981999. In collecting data, we deliberately sought a mix of public and private schools, as well as a mix of college majors among the survey respondents. A convenience sample of professors at each of the colleges was contacted and asked to allow their students to participate in the study by filling out a survey administered in their classes. Whenever possible, one of us or a local contact person was also present to answer any questions or clear up misunderstandings while the survey was administered.