ง3. Methodology
Measures
The present study utilized established multi-item scales to measure the study constructs. The scale to measure compulsive buying was borrowed from Faber and O’Guinn (1992) and materialism scale was borrowed from Jalees (2007). Perceived social image was measured using the scale borrowed from Elliot (1994). All the study constructs were measured using five-point Likert scale ranged from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree. The full set of questionnaire is shown in the Appendix.
Sample and Sampling Strategy
It is evident that compulsive buying behavior generally occurs at late adolescence or in early adulthood (Christenson et al. 1994; Schlosser et al., 1994; Yurchisin & Johnson 2004). To capture this particular age group, often researchers target the undergraduate students as the subject pool (see Edwards 1993; Roberts 1998; Yurchisin et al. 2004). Following this convention, the present research also considered undergraduate students as respondents.
According to Calder et al. (1981) and Diamantopoulous and Schlegelmilch (1997), non-probability sampling is applicable when the objective of the study is to obtain theoretical generalizability rather than to achieve population generalizability. Since, the present research aims to attain theoretical generalizability by comprehending the existing knowledge in the field of consumer behavior by examining the negative aspect of consumption, the use of convenience sampling (a non-probability sampling method) is justified. Data were collected from a reputable private university in Malaysia using self-administered questionnaire survey. In total, 300 questionnaires were distributed and 236 questionnaires were collected. After sorting and cleaning the data, 223 usable questionnaires were obtained to run the analyses. Structural equation modeling (SEM) using AMOS18 maximum likelihood estimation was utilized to analyze the data. To run SEM, the general rule of thumb is that the sample size is needed to be greater than or equal to 200 (Kline 2005). Therefore, for this study, the sample size of 223 was deemed sufficient to run SEM.