TY - JOUR
T1 - Attitudes to debt among indebted undergraduates
T2 - A cross-national exploratory factor analysis
AU - Harrison, Neil
AU - Agnew, Steve
AU - Serido, Joyce
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2015/2/1
Y1 - 2015/2/1
N2 - This paper reports the results of a cross-national study spanning England, New Zealand and the United States. A total of 496 first year undergraduates studying business or social science completed a 20-item questionnaire. This focused on their attitudes to their debt incurred while studying, as measured on a five-point Likert scale. A factor analysis model was developed, from which four consistent factors emerged, explaining 45 percent of the variation and consistent between countries. These factors were named: Anxiety, Utility-For-Lifestyle, Utility-For-Investment and Awareness. The first three factors were found to be uncorrelated with each other, but higher Awareness was associated with lower levels of Anxiety and Utility-For-Lifestyle and higher levels of Utility-For-Investment. The relationship with previous studies and implications for theory and practice are discussed.
AB - This paper reports the results of a cross-national study spanning England, New Zealand and the United States. A total of 496 first year undergraduates studying business or social science completed a 20-item questionnaire. This focused on their attitudes to their debt incurred while studying, as measured on a five-point Likert scale. A factor analysis model was developed, from which four consistent factors emerged, explaining 45 percent of the variation and consistent between countries. These factors were named: Anxiety, Utility-For-Lifestyle, Utility-For-Investment and Awareness. The first three factors were found to be uncorrelated with each other, but higher Awareness was associated with lower levels of Anxiety and Utility-For-Lifestyle and higher levels of Utility-For-Investment. The relationship with previous studies and implications for theory and practice are discussed.
KW - Consumer attitudes and behaviour
KW - Debt attitudes
KW - Educational finance
KW - Factor analysis
KW - Higher education
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U2 - 10.1016/j.joep.2014.11.005
DO - 10.1016/j.joep.2014.11.005
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84920640340
SN - 0167-4870
VL - 46
SP - 62
EP - 73
JO - Journal of Economic Psychology
JF - Journal of Economic Psychology
ER -